



Copyright M " C> o a 

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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 


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Ta'l- 

THE COMEDY OF HUMAN LIFE 


By H. DE BALZAC 


SCENES FROM PARISIAN LIFE 


GOBSECK. 

THE SECRETS OF THE PRINCESSE DE CADIGNAN. 
UNCONSCIOUS COMEDIANS. 

ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN. 

COMEDIES PLAYED GRATIS. 


BALZAC’S NOVELS. 

Translated by Miss K. P. Wormeley. 


A l ready Published : 

PEEE GORIOT. 

DUCHESSE DE LANGEAIS. 

RISE AND FALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU. 
EUGENIE GRANDET. 

COUSIN PONS. 

THE COUNTRY DOCTOR. 

THE TWO BROTHERS. 

THE ALKAHEST (La Recherche del’Absolu). 
MODESTE MIGNON. 

THE MAGIC SKIN (La Peau de Chagrin). 
COUSIN BETTE. 

LOUIS LAMBERT. 

BUREAUCRACY (Les Employes). 
SERAPHITA. 

SONS OF THE SOIL (Les Paysans). 

FAME AND SORROW (Chat-qui-pelote). 
THE LILY OF THE VALLEY. 

URSULA. 

AN HISTORICAL MYSTERY. 

ALBERT SAVARUS. 

BALZAC : A MEMOIR. 

PIERRETTE. 

THE CHOUANS. 

LOST ILLUSIONS. 

A GREAT MAN OF THE PROVINCES IN 
PARIS. 

THE BROTHERHOOD OF CONSOLATION. 
THE VILLAGE RECTOR. 

MEMOIRS OF TWO YOUNG MARRIED 
WOMEN. 

CATHERINE DE’ MEDICI. 

LUCIEN DE RUBEMPRE. 

FERRAGUS, CHIEF OF THE DEVORANTS. 
A START IN LIFE. 

THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT. 

BEATRIX. 

DAUGHTER OF EVE. 

THE GALLERY OF ANTIQUITIES. 
GOBSECK. ... , 

ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, Boston. 



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HONORE DE BALZAC 

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TRANSLATED BY 

KATHARINE PRESCOTT WORMELEY 


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BOSTON 

1896 


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Copyright , 1896, 

By Roberts Brothers. 


All rights reserved . 



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Stntoersitg f)msg: 

John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 


To Monsieur le Baron Barchou de Penhoen. 

Among all the pupils at Vendome, we are, I think, the 
only ones who have met again in the career of letters — we 
who are cultivating philosophy at an age when we ought to 
be cultivating only the De Viris ! 

Here is the book which I was making when we met, and 
you were toiling at your noble work on German philosophy. 
Thus, neither of us has missed his vocation. In seeing 
your name here, you will perhaps feel as much pleasure as 
the fact of thus inscribing it affords to 

Your old friend and schoolmate, 

De Balzac. 



















































































































































































■ 








G O B S E C K. 


At eleven o’clock one evening, during the winter 
of 1829-1830, two persons who were not members of 
the family were still seated in the salon of the Vicom- 
tesse de Grandlieu. One of them, a young and very 
good-looking man, took leave on hearing the clock 
strike the hour. When the sound of his carriage- 
wheels echoed from the courtyard, the viscountess, 
seeing no one present but her brother and a family 
friend who were finishing their game of piquet, went 
up to her daughter as she stood before the fireplace, 
apparently examining a fire-screen of shaded porcelain 
while she listened to the sound of the same wheels in 
a manner to justify the mother’s anxiety. 

“Camille, if you continue to behave toward that 
young Comte de Resfiaud as you have done this even- 
ing, you will oblige me to close my doors to him. 
Listen to me, my child; if you have confidence in 
my affection, let me guide you in life. At seventeen 
years of age, a girl is unable to judge of either the 
future, or the past, or of certain social considerations. 


l 


2 


Grobseclc. 


I shall make only one remark to you: Monsieur de 
Restaud has a mother who would squander millions, 
— a woman ill-born, a Demoiselle Goriot, who, in her 
youth, caused people to talk about her. She behaved 
so badly to her father that she does not deserve to 
have so good a son. The young count adores her, 
and stands by her with a filial piety which is worthy 
of all praise; he also takes the utmost care of his 
brother and sister. However admirable such conduct 
may be,” continued the viscountess, in a pointed man- 
ner, “so long as the mother lives, all parents would 
fear to trust the future and the fortune of a daughter 
to young Restaud.” 

“I have overheard a few words which make me 
desirous of intervening between you and Mademoi- 
selle de Grandlieu,” said the friend of the family, 
suddenly. “I’ve won, Monsieur le comte,” he said, 
turning to his adversary. “I leave you now and rush 
to the succor of your niece.” 

“This is what is called having lawyer’s ears,” 
cried the viscountess. “My dear Derville, how could 
you overhear what I was saying in a low voice to 
Camille?” 

“I saw your look and understood it,” replied 
Derville, sitting down on a sofa at the corner of the 
fireplace. 

The uncle took a seat beside his niece, and Madame 


GobsecJc. 


3 


de Grandlieu placed berself on a low chair between 
her daughter and Derville. 

“It is high time, Madame la vicomtesse, that I 
should tell you a little tale which will modify the 
opinion you have formed as to the fortunes of Comte 
Ernest de Restaud.” 

“A tale!” cried Camille. “Begin it, quick! mon- 
sieur.” 

Derville cast a look at Madame de Grandlieu which 
signified that the story he was about to tell would 
interest her. 

The Vicomtesse de Grandlieu, by her fortune and 
the antiquity of her name, was one of the most dis- 
tinguished women of the faubourg Saint-Germain, and 
it may not seem natural that a Parisian lawyer should 
speak to her familiarly, and treat her in a manner so 
apparently cavalier; but the phenomenon is easily 
explained. Madame de Grandlieu, who returned to 
France with the royal family, came to reside in Paris, 
where’ she lived, at first, on a stipend granted by 
Louis XVIII. from the Civil List, — a situation that 
was quite intolerable. Derville, the lawyer, chanced 
to discover certain legal blunders in the sale which 
the Republic had made of the hotel de Grandlieu, and 
he asserted that it ought to be restored to the vis- 
countess. He undertook the case for a certain fee, 
and won it. Encouraged by this success, he sued a 


4 


Gobseclc. 


fraternity of monks, and harassed them legally, until 
he obtained the restitution of the forest of Liceney. 
He also recovered a number of shares in the Orleans 
canal, and certain parcels of real estate with which 
the Emperor had endowed a few public institutions. 

In this way the fortune of Madame de Grandlieu, 
restored to her by the care and ability of the young 
lawyer, amounted to an income of sixty thousand 
francs a year, before the law of indemnity (which 
restored to her enormous sums of money) had been 
passed. A man of the highest honor, learned, modest, 
and excellent company, he became, henceforth, the 
“ friend of the family. ” Though his conduct to 
Madame de Grandlieu had won him the respect and 
the business of the best houses of the faubourg Saint- 
Germain, he never profited by that favor as a more 
ambitious man would have done. He resisted the pro- 
posals of the viscountess to sell his practice and enter 
the magistracy, a career in which, thanks to her influ- 
ence, he would certainly have obtained a very rapid 
advancement. With the exception of the hotel de 
Grandlieu, where he sometimes passed an evening, he 
never went into society unless to keep up his connec- 
tions. It was fortunate for him that his talents had 
been brought to light by his devotion to the interests 
of Madame de Grandlieu, otherwise he would have 
run the risk of losing his practice altogether. Derville 
had not the soul of a pettifogger. 


Gob seek. 


5 


Ever since Comte Ernest de Restaud had been re- 
ceived in Madame de Grandlieu’s salon and Derville 
had discovered Camille’s sympathy for the young man, 
he had become as assiduous in his own visits as any 
dandy of the Chaussee-d’Antin newly admitted to the 
circles of the noble faubourg. A few days before 
the evening on which our story opens, he was standing 
near Camille at a ball when he said to her, motioning 
to the young count : — 

“ Is n’t it a pity that young fellow has n’t two or 
three millions ? ” 

“Do you call it a pity? I don’t think so,” she 
answered. “Monsieur de Restaud has great talent, 
he is well-educated, and the minister with whom he is 
placed thinks highly of him. I have no doubt he will 
become a very remarkable man. Such a young fellow 
will find all the fortune he wants whenever he comes 
to power.” 

“Yes, but suppose he were rich now?” 

“Suppose he were rich?” echoed Camille, coloring. 
“Oh! then all the girls in society would be quarrelling 
for him,” she added, with a nod at the quadrilles. 

“And then, perhaps,” said the lawyer, slyly, “Made- 
moiselle de Grandlieu would not be the only one on 
whom his eyes would turn. Why do you blush? You 
have a liking for him, have n’t you? Come, tell me.” 

Camille rose hastily. 


6 


GobsecJc. 


“She loves him,” thought Derville. 

Since that evening Camille had shown the lawyer 
very unusual attentions, perceiving that he approved 
of her inclination for the young count. Until then, 
although she was not ignorant of the many obliga- 
tions of her family to Derville, she had always shown 
him more courtesy than real friendship, more civility 
than feeling; her manners, and also the tone of her 
voice, had let him know the distance that conventions 
placed between them. Gratitude is a debt which 
children will not always accept as part of their inher- 
itance. 

“This affair,” said Derville to the viscountess, on 
the evening when our story opens, “recalls to me the 
only romantic circumstances of my life — You are 
laughing already,” he said, interrupting himself, “at 
the idea of a lawyer talking of romance. But I have 
been twenty-five years of age as well as others; and 
by that time of life I had already seen very strange 
things. I shall begin by telling you about a person- 
age whom you can never know, — a usurer. Imagine 
vividly that pale, wan visage, to which I wish the 
Academy would allow me to apply the word ‘ moon- 
faced; ’ it looked like tarnished silver. My usurer’s 
hair was flat, carefully combed, and sandy-gray in 
color. The features of his face, impassible as that of 
Talleyrand, had apparently been cast in iron. His 


GobsecJc. 


7 


little eyes, yellow as those of a weasel, had scarcely 
any lashes and seemed to fear the light; but the peak 
of an old cap protected them. His pointed nose was 
so pockmarked about the tip that you might have 
compared it to a gimlet. He had the thin lips of those 
little old men and alchemists painted by Rembrandt 
or Metzu. The man spoke low, in a gentle voice, 
and was never angry. His age was a problem: it 
was impossible to say whether he was old before his 
time, or whether he so spared his youth that it lasted 
him forever. 

“All things in his room were clean and shabby, 
resembling, from the green cover of the desk to the 
bedside carpet, the frigid sanctum of old maids who 
spend their days in rubbing their furniture. In win- 
ter, the embers on his hearth, buried beneath a heap of 
ashes, smoked, but never blazed. His actions, from 
the hour of his rising to his evening fits of coughing, 
were subjected to the regularity of clock-work. He 
was in some respects an automaton, whom sleep 
wound up. If you touch a beetle crossing a piece of 
paper, it will stop and feign to be dead ; just so this 
man would interrupt his speech if a carriage passed, 
in order not to force his voice. Imitating Fontenelle, 
he economized the vital movement and concentrated 
all human sentiments upon the I. Consequently, his 
life flowed on without producing more noise than the 


8 


G-obsecJc. 


sand of an ancient hour-glass. Occasionally, his vic- 
tims made great outcries, and were furious ; after which 
a dead silence fell, as in kitchens after a duck’s neck 
is wrung. 

“Towards evening the man-of-notes became an 
ordinary mortal; his metals were transformed into a 
human heart. If he was satisfied with his day he 
rubbed his hands, and from the chinks and wrinkles 
of his face a vapor of gayety exhaled, — for it is 
impossible to otherwise describe the silent play of his 
muscles, where a sensation, like the noiseless laugh of 
Leather-Stocking, seemed to lie. In his moments of 
greatest joy his words were always monosyllabic, and 
the expression of his countenance invariably negative. 

“Such was the neighbor whom chance bestowed 
upon me at a house where I was living, in the rue des 
Gres, when I was still a second clerk and had only just 
finished my third year in the Law-school. This house, 
which has no courtyard, is damp and gloomy. The 
rooms get no light except from the street. The clois- 
tral arrangement which divides the building into 
rooms of equal size, with no issue but a long corridor 
lighted from above, shows that the house was formerly 
part of a convent. At this sad aspect the gayety of 
even a dashing young blood would die away as he 
entered the usurer’s abode. The man and his house 
resembled each other, like the rock and its barnacle. 


Gobseck. 


9 


“The only being with whom he held communication, 
socially speaking, was myself. He came to my room, 
sometimes, to ask for tinder, or to borrow a book or a 
newspaper, and at night he allowed me to enter his 
cell, where we talked if he happened to be good- 
humored. These marks of confidence were the results 
of four years’ vicinity and my virtuous conduct, 
which, for want of money, very closely resembled his 
own. Had he relations, or friends? Was he rich or 
poor? No one could have answered those questions. 
During these years I never saw any money in his pos- 
session. His wealth was no doubt in the cellars of 
the Bank of France. He collected his notes himself, 
racing through Paris on legs as sinewy as those of a 
deer. He was a martyr to his caution. One day, by 
accident, he showed a bit of gold : a double napoleon 
made its escape, heaven knows how! through his 
waistcoat pocket; another tenant, who was following 
him up the staircase, picked it up and gave it to him. 

“ ‘That is not mine,’ he answered, with a gesture 
of surprise. ‘Do you suppose that I have money? 
Should I live as I do if I were rich? ’ 

“In the mornings he made his own coffee on a tin 
heater which always stood in the dingy corner of his 
fireplace. His dinner was brought from a cookshop. 
Our old portress went up at a fixed hour and put his 
room in order. And, to cap all, by a singularity 


10 


G-obseck. 


which Sterne would have called predestination, the 
man was named Gobseck. 

“Later, when I managed his affairs, I discovered 
that when we first knew each other he was sixty-six 
' years old. He was born about 1740, in the suburbs 
of Antwerp, of a Dutchman and a Jewess; his name 
was Jean-Esther van Gobseck. You remember, of 
course, how all Paris was excited about the murder 
of a woman called La belle Hollandaise ? When I 
chanced to speak of it to my neighbor, he said, with- 
out expressing the slightest interest or surprise: — 

“ ‘ That was my great-niece.’ 

“ He made no other comment on the death of his 
only known heir, the granddaughter of his sister. 
From the newspapers I learned that La belle Hollan- 
daise was called Sarah van Gobseck. When I asked 
him by what strange chance his great-niece bore his 
name, he replied, with a smile : — 

“ 4 The women of our family never marry.’ 

44 This singular man had always refused, through 
four generations, to know, or even see, a single female 
member of his family. He abhorred his heirs, and 
could not conceive that his wealth would ever be pos- 
sessed by others, even after his death. His mother 
had despatched him as cabin-boy, when ten years old, 
to the Dutch possessions in India, where he had lived 
as he could for twenty years. The wrinkles of his 


GobsecJc. 


11 


yellow forehead covered the secrets of horrible events, 
awful terrors, unhoped-for luck, romantic disappoint- 
ment, and infinite joys; also there were signs of 
hunger endured, love trodden underfoot, fortune com- 
promised, lost, and refound, life many a time in danger, 
and saved, perhaps, by sudden decisions, the urgency 
for which excuses cruelty. He had known Monsieur 
de Lally, Admiral Simeuse, Monsieur de Kergarouet, 
Monsieur d’Estaing, the Bailli de Suffren, Monsieur 
de Portenduere, Lord Cornwallis, Lord Hastings, the 
father of Tippu Sahib, and Tippu Sahib himself ; for 
this Savoyard, who had served the King of Delhi, and 
contributed not a little to found the power of the 
Mahrattas, had done business with him. He also had 
dealings with Victor Hughes, and several other famous 
corsairs, for he lived for a long time on the island of 
Saint Thomas. He had attempted so many things in 
quest of fortune that he even tried to discover the 
gold of that tribe of savages so celebrated near Buenos 
Ayres. He was not a stranger to any of the great 
events of the war of American Independence. But 
when he spoke of India or America, which he never did 
with others, and rarely with me, he seemed to think he 
had committed an indiscretion, and regretted it. 

“If humanity, if social fellowship, are a religion, he 
must be considered an atheist. Though I set myself 
to examine him, I must admit, to my confusion, that 


12 


Gobseck. 


up to the very last moment his heart was impenetrable 
to me. I sometimes asked myself to what sex he 
belonged. If all usurers resemble him, I believe they 
form a neutral species. Was he faithful to the religion 
of his mother, and did he look upon all Christians 
as his prey? Had he made himself a Catholic, a 
Mohammedan, a Brahman, a Lutheran ? I never knew 
his religious opinions, but he seemed to me more 
indifferent than sceptical. 

“One evening I entered the room of this man 
transmuted to gold, whom his victims (he called them 
clients) addressed either in jest or satire as 4 Papa 
Gobseck/ I found him in his armchair, motionless 
as a statue, his eyes fixed on the mantel of the fire- 
place, on which he seemed to be scanning memoranda 
of accounts. A smoky lamp cast out a gleam which, 
far from coloring his face, brought out its pallor. He 
looked at me silently, and pointed to the chair which 
awaited me. 4 Of what is this strange being think- 
ing? * I said to myself. 4 Does he know that God 
exists? that there are feelings, women, happiness?’ 
I pitied him as 1 pity a sick man. And yet I also 
understood that he possessed by thought the earth he 
had travelled over, dug into, weighed, sifted, and 
worked. 

4 4 4 Good-evening, papa Gobseck,’ I said. 

44 He turned his head in my direction, his thick 


GobsecJc. 


13 


black eyebrows slightly contracting; in him that 
peculiar movement was equivalent to the gayest smile 
of a Southerner. 

“ ‘ You seem as gloomy,’ I continued, ‘ as you were 
the day you heard of the bankruptcy of that publisher 
whose cleverness you have always admired, though 
you were made its victim.’ 

“ ‘ Victim? ’ he said, in a surprised tone. 

“ ‘ Did n’t he, in order to obtain his certificate of 
insolvency, pay up your account with notes subject to 
the settlement in bankruptcy, and when the business 
was re-established did n’t those notes come under the 
reduction named in that settlement ? ’ 

“‘He was shrewd,’ replied the old man, ‘but I 
nipped him back.’ 

“ ‘ Perhaps you hold a few protested notes? — this 
is the thirtieth of the month, you know.’ 

“I had never before mentioned money to him. He 
raised his eyes to me, satirically; then, in his softest 
voice, the tones of which were like the sounds a pupil 
draws from his flute when he has no mouthpiece, he 
said : — 

‘“lam amusing myself.’ 

“ ‘ Then you do find amusement sometimes ? ’ 

u ‘ Do you think there are no poets but those who 
scribble verses?’ he asked, shrugging his shoulders, 
and casting a look of pity on me. 


14 


GrobsecJc. 


“ ‘Poesy in that head! ’ I thought to myself; for at 
that time I knew nothing of his life. 

“ ‘ What existence is there as brilliant as mine? ’ he 
continued, and his eyes brightened. i You are young; 
you have the ideas of your blood; you see faces of 
women in your embers, I see nothing but coals in 
mine. You believe in everything, I believe in noth- 
ing. Keep your illusions, if you can. I am going to 
reckon up life to you. Whether you travel about the 
world, or whether you stay in your chimney-corner 
with a wife, there comes an age when life is nothing 
more than a habit, practised in some preferred spot. 
Happiness then consists in the exercise of our facul- 
ties applied to real objects. Outside of those two 
precepts all else is false. My principles have varied 
like those of other men; I have changed with each 
latitude in which I lived. What Europe admires, Asia 
punishes. A vice in Paris is a necessity after you 
pass the Azores. Nothing is a fixed fact here below; 
conventions alone exist, and those are modified by 
climate. To one who has flung himself forcibly into 
every social mould, convictions and moralities are 
nothing more than words without weight. There re- 
mains within us but the one true sentiment which 
Nature implanted there; namely, the instinct of pres- 
ervation. In European societies this instinct is called 
self-interest. If you had lived as long as I have, you 


G-obseck. 


15 


would know that there is but one material thing the 
value of which is sufficiently certain to be worth a 
man’s while to care for it. That thing is — Gold. 
Gold represents all human forces. I have travelled ; I 
have seen in all lands plains and mountains: plains 
are tiresome, mountains fatiguing ; hence, places and 
regions signify nothing. As for customs and morals, 
man is the same everywhere ; everywhere the struggle 
between wealth and poverty exists; everywhere it is 
inevitable. Better, therefore, to be the one to take 
advantage, than the one to be taken advantage of. 
Everywhere you will find muscular folk who work 
their way, and lymphatic folk who fret and worry. 
Everywhere pleasures are the same; for all emotions 
are exhausted, and nothing survives of them but the 
single sentiment of vanity. Vanity is always L 
Vanity is never truly satisfied except by floods of 
gold. Desires need time, or physical means, or care. 
Well! gold contains all those things in the germ, and 
will give them in reality. None but fools or sick men 
can find pleasure in playing cards every night to see 
if they can win a few francs. None but fools can 
spend their time in asking each other what happens, 
and whether Madame So-and-so occupies her sofa 
alone or in company, or whether she has more blood 
than lymph, more ardor than virtue. None but dupes 
can think themselves useful to their fellow-men, by 


16 


Gobseck. 


laying down political principles to govern events 
which are still unforeseen. None but ninnies can like 
to go through the same routine, pacing up and down 
like animals in a cage; dressing for others, eating for 
others, glorifying themselves about a horse or a car- 
riage which their neighbor can’t copy for at least 
three days! Isn’t that the life of your Parisians, 
reduced to a few sentences? Let us look at life on 
a higher plane. There, happiness consists either in 
strong emotions which wear out life, or in regular 
occupations worked, as it were, by mechanism at 
stated times. Above these forms of happiness there 
exists the curiosity (said to be noble) of knowing the 
secrets of Nature, or of producing a certain imitation 
of her effects. Is n’t that, in two words, art or knowl- 
edge, passion or tranquillity? Well! all human pas- 
sions, heightened by the play of social interests, 
parade before me, who live in tranquillity. As for 
your scientific curiosity, — a sort of combat in which 
man is always worsted ! — I substitute for that a pene- 
tration into the secret springs that move humanity. 
In a word, I possess the world without fatigue, and 
the world has not the slightest hold upon me. 
Listen to me,’ he continued. ‘ I will tell you the 
events of my morning, and you can judge by them of 
my pleasures.’ 

“ He rose, went to the door and bolted it, drew a 


GobsecJc. 


17 


curtain of old tapestry, the brass rings grinding on 
the rod, and sat down again. 

“ ‘ This morning,’ he said, ‘ I had only two notes to 
collect; the others I had given last evening to clients 
in place of ready money. So much made, you know! 
for in discounting them I deduct the cost of collec- 
tion, taking forty sous for a street cab. A pretty 
thing it would be if a client made me cross all Paris 
for six francs discount, — I, who am under bonds to 
no one ! — I, who pay no more than seven francs in 
taxes! Well, the first note, for a thousand francs, 
presented by a young man, a dashing fellow, with a 
spangled waistcoat, eyeglass, tilbury, English horse, 
etc., was signed by one of the prettiest women in 
Paris, married to a rich man, — a count. Why should 
this countess have signed that note (void in law but 
excellent in fact) ? For such poor women fear the 
scandal which a protested note would cause in their 
homes ; they ’ll even sell themselves rather than not 
take up the note. I w r anted to know the secret value 
of that paper. Was it folly, imprudence, love, or 
charity ? The second note, also for a thousand francs, 
signed “ Jenny Malvaut,” was presented to me by a 
linen-draper in a fair way to be ruined. No person 
having credit at the Bank ever comes to me; the first 
step taken from my door to my desk means despair, 
bankruptcy on the verge of discovery, and, above all, 

2 


18 


Gobseck. 


the refusal of aid from many bankers. That ’s how it 
is that I see none but stags at bay, hunted by the pack 
of their creditors. The countess lived in the rue du 
Helder, and Jenny in the rue Montmartre. How 
many conjectures came into my mind as I went from 
here this morning! If those two women were not 
ready to pay, they would receive me with more respect 
than if I had been their own father. What grimaces 
that countess would play off upon me in place of her 
thousand francs! She’d pretend to be cordial, and 
speak in the coaxing voice such women reserve for 
holders of notes ; she ’d shower cajoling words upon 
me, perhaps implore me, and I — ’ 

44 Here the old man cast his eye upon me. 

44 4 and I — immovable! ’ he went on. ‘ I am there 
as an Avenger; I appear as Remorse. But enough of 
such fancies. I got there. 

44 4 44 Madame la comtesse is still in bed,” said the 
lady’s-maid. 

44 4 44 When will she be visible? ” 

“ 4 44 At noon.” 

44 4 44 Is Madame la comtesse ill? ” 

44 4 44 No, monsieur, but she did not return from a 
ball till three in the morning.” 

4 4 4 4 4 My name is Gobseck; tell her my name, and 
say I shall return at noon.” 

4 4 4 And off I went, signing my presence on the carpet 


GrobsecJc. 


19 


that covered the stairs. I like to muddy the floors of 
rich men, not from petty meanness, but to let them 
feel the claws of necessity. Reached the rue Mont- 
martre, found a shabby sort of house, pushed open the 
porte-cochere , and saw a damp, dark courtyard, where 
the sun never penetrates. The porter’s lodge was 
dingy, the glass of the window looked like the sleeve 
of a wadded dressing-gown worn too long; it was 
greasy, cracked, and discolored. 

44 4 44 Mademoiselle Jenny Malvaut? ” 

“ 4 44 She ’s out; but if you have come about a note, 
the money is here.” 

“ 4 44 IT1 come back,” I said. 

44 4 The moment I heard the porter had the money I 
wanted to know that girl. I felt sure she was pretty. 
I spent the morning looking at the engravings dis- 
played on the boulevard. Then, as twelve o’clock 
sounded, I entered the salon which adjoins the bed- 
room of Madame la comtesse. 

“ 4 “ Madame has just this moment rung for me,” 
said the maid. “ I don’t think she will see you yet.” 

“‘“I’ll wait,” I answered, seating myself in an 
armchair. 

4 4 4 1 heard the blinds open in madame’s room; then 
the maid came hurrying in, and said to me: — 

44 4 44 Come in, monsieur.” 

44 4 By the softness of her voice I knew very well her 


20 


G-obseck. 


mistress was not ready to pay. What a beautiful 
woman I then saw! She had flung a camel’s-hair 
shawl round her shoulders so hastily that her shape 
could be guessed in all its nudity. She wore a night- 
gown trimmed with frills as white as snow, which 
showed an annual expense of over two thousand francs 
for washing. Her black hair fell in heavy curls from 
a silk handkerchief, carelessly knotted round her head 
after the Creole fashion. Her bed was the picture 
of disorder, caused, no doubt, by troubled sleep. A 
painter would have paid a good deal to have stood 
a few moments in the midst of this scene. Under 
draperies voluptuously looped up were pillows on a 
down quilt of sky-blue silk, the lace of their trimming 
showing to advantage on that azure background. On 
a bear’s skin, stretched between the carved lion’s 
paws of the mahogany bedstead, lay white satin shoes, 
tossed off with the carelessness that comes of the 
fatigue of a ball. On a chair was a rumpled gown, 
the sleeves touching the floor. Stockings which a 
breath of wind might have blown away were twisted 
round the legs of a chair. A fan of value, half- 
opened, glittered on the chimney-piece. The drawers 
of the bureau were open. Flowers, diamonds, gloves, 
a bouquet, a belt, were thrown here and there about 
the room. I breathed a vague odor of perfumes. All 
was luxury and disorder, beauty without harmony. 


Gobseck. 


21 


Already for this woman, or for her lover, poverty, 
crouching beneath these riches, raised its head and 
made them feel its sharpened teeth. The tired face 
of the countess was in keeping with that room strewn 
with the fragments of a fete. Those scattered gew- 
gaws were pitiful; collected on her person the night 
before, they had brought her adoration. These vestiges 
of love, blasted by remorse, that image of a life of dis- 
sipation, of luxury, of tumult, betrayed the efforts of 
Tantalus to grasp eluding pleasures. A few red spots 
on the young woman’s face showed the delicacy of 
her skin; but her features seemed swollen, and the 
brown circle beneath her eyes was more marked than 
was natural. Still, nature was too vigorous within 
her to let these indications of a life of folly injure her 
beauty. Her eyes sparkled. Like an Herodias of 
Leonardo da Vinci (I ’ve sold those pictures), she 
was magnificent in life and vigor; there was nothing 
paltry in her form or in her features; she inspired 
love, and she seemed to me to be stronger than love. 
She pleased me. It is long since my heart has beaten. 
I was paid ! I ’d give a thousand francs any day for 
a sensation that recalled to me my youth. 

“ ‘ “ Monsieur,” she said, pointing to a chair, “will 
you have the kindness to wait for your money ? ” 

“ Until to-morrow, at noon, madame,” I replied, 
folding the note I had presented to her. “I have no 


22 


GobsecJc. 


legal right to protest until then.” In my own mind, 
I was saying to myself: “Pay for your luxury, pay 
for your name, pay for your pleasures, pay for the 
monopoly you enjoy! To secure their property rights 
the rich have invented courts and judges and the 
guillotine, — candles, in which poor ignorant creatures 
fly and singe themselves. But for you, who sleep in 
silk and satin, there’s something else: there’s re- 
morse, grinding of teeth behind those smiles of yours, 
jaws of fantastic lions opening to craunch you! ” 

“ ‘ “A protest! ” she cried, looking me in the face; 
“ you can’t mean it! Would you have so little con- 
sideration for me?” 

“ ‘ “ If the king himself owed me money, madame, 
and did not pay it, I ’d summons him even quicker 
than another debtor.” 

“ ‘ At this moment some one knocked at the door. 

“ 4 “ I am not visible,” said the countess, imperi- 
ously. 

“ ‘ “ Anastasie, I want to see you very much.” 

“ 4 “ Not just now, dear,” she answered, in a milder 
voice, but not a kind one. 

“ 1 “ What nonsense! I hear you talking to some 
one,” said a man, who could be, of course, none other 
than the count, as he entered the room. 

“ ‘ The countess looked at me; I understood her, 
and from that moment she became my slave. There 


G-obsecJc. 


23 


was a time in my life, young man, when I might, per- 
haps, have been fool enough not to protest. In 1763, 
at Pondicherry, I forgave a woman who swindled me 
finely. I deserved it ; why did I ever trust her ! 

“ 1 u What does monsieur want?” said the count. 

‘“I saw that woman tremble from head to foot; the 
white and satiny skin of her throat grew rough and 
turned,, as they say, to goose-flesh. As for me, I 
laughed inwardly, without a muscle of my face 
quivering. 

‘ “ Monsieur is one of my tradesmen,” she said. 

“ ‘ The count turned his back upon me. I pulled the 
note half out of my pocket. Seeing that inexorable 
action, the young woman came close up to me and 
offered me a diamond ring. 

“ ‘ “ Take it, and go! ” she said. 

“ 4 That was simply an exchange of properties. I 
bowed, gave her the note, and left the room. The 
diamond was worth fully twelve hundred francs. In 
the courtyard I found a swarm of valets, brushing 
their liveries, blacking their boots, or cleaning the 
sumptuous equipages. “That,” I said to myself, 44 is 
what brings these people to me. That ’s what drives 
them to steal millions decently, to betray their coun- 
try. Not to soil his boots by going afoot, the great 
lord — or he who imitates the lord — takes, once for 
all, a bath of mud ! ” I was thinking all that, when 


24 


Ciobseck. 


the great gates opened, and in drove the cabriolet of 
the young man who had brought me the note. 

“ 4 “Monsieur,” I said to him as he got out, “here 
are two hundred francs, which I beg you to return to 
Madame la comtesse; and you will please say to her 
that I hold at her disposition the article she placed in 
my hands this morning.” 

“ ‘ He took the two hundred francs with a sarcastic 
smile, which seemed to say: “Ha! she has paid! so 
much the better!” I read upon that young man’s 
face the future of the countess. The pretty, fair 
youth, a gambler without emotion, will ruin himself, 
ruin her, ruin her husband, ruin her children, spend 
their dowries, and cause greater devastation through 
salons than a battery of grape-shot through a regi- 
ment. Then I went to the rue Montmartre to find 
Mademoiselle Jenny Malvaut. I climbed up a steep 
little staircase. When I reached the fifth floor, I 
entered a small apartment of two rooms only, where 
all was as clean and bright as a new ducat. I 
could n’t see the slightest trace of dust on the furni- 
ture of the first room, where I was received by Made- 
moiselle Jenny, a true Parisian young woman, very 
simply dressed ; head fresh and elegant, prepossessing 
manner, chestnut hair, well-combed, raised in two 
puffs upon the temples, which gave a look of mischief 
to the eyes, that were clear as crystals. The day- 


Gob seek. 


25 


light, coining through little curtains hanging at the 
windows, threw a soft reflection on her modest face. 
Round her were numerous bits of linen, cut in shapes 
which showed me her regular occupation ; it was evi- 
dently that of a seamstress. She sat there like the 
genius of solitude. When I presented the note I said 
that I had not found her at home that morning. 

‘ u “ But,” she said, “the money was with the 
porter.” 

“ ‘ I pretended not to hear. 

“ ‘ “ Mademoiselle goes out early, it seems? ” 

“ ‘ “ I seldom go out at all; but if one works at 
night one must take a bath in the daytime.” 

“ 4 1 looked at her. With one glance I could guess 
the truth about her. Here was a girl condemned to 
toil by poverty, belonging, no doubt, to a family of 
honest farmers; for I noticed a certain ruddiness in 
her face peculiar to those who are born in the country. 
I can’t tell you what air of virtue it was that breathed 
from her features, but I seemed to have entered an 
atmosphere of sincerity and innocence; my lungs were 
freshened. Poor child! she believed in something! 
Her simple bedstead of painted wood was surmounted 
by a crucifix wreathed by two branches of box. I was 
half-touched. I felt disposed to offer her money at 
twelve per cent, only to enable her to purchase some 
good business. “But,” I said to myself, “I daresay 


26 


Gobseck. 


there ’s some little cousin who would get money on her 
signature and eat up all she has.” So I went away, 
being on my guard against such generous ideas, for 
I ’ve often had occasion to notice that when benev- 
olence does not injure the benefactor it is sure to 
destroy the person benefited. When you came in I 
was thinking what a good little wife Jenny Malvaut 
would make. I compared her pure and solitary life 
with that of the countess, who, with one foot over 
the precipice, is about to roll down into the gulf of 
vice! 

“‘Well!’ he continued, after a moment of pro- 
found silence, during which I examined him, ‘ do you 
now think there is no enjoyment in penetrating thus 
to the inner folds of the human heart, in espousing 
the life of others, and seeing that life bared before 
me? Sights forever varied! — hideous sores, mortal 
sorrows, scenes of love, miseries which the waters of 
the Seine await, joys of youth leading to the scaffold, 
despairing laughter, sumptuous festivals! Yesterday, 
a tragedy, — some good father of a family smothers 
himself with charcoal because he cannot feed his chil- 
dren. To-morrow, a comedy, — a young man trying 
to play me the scene of Monsieur Dimanche, varied 
to suit the times. You have heard the eloquence 
of our modern preachers vaunted ; I ’ ve occasionally 
wasted my time listening to them; they have some- 


G-obseck. 


27 


times made me change my opinion, but my conduct, 
— as some one, I forget who, says, — never! Well, 
those good priests, and your Mirabeau and Vergniaud 
and others are stutterers compared with my orators. 
Often a young girl in love, an old merchant on the 
downhill to bankruptcy, a mother trying to hide her 
son’s crime, an artist without food, a great man on 
the decline of his popularity, who, for want of money, 
is about to lose the fruit of his efforts, — such beings 
have made me shudder by the power of their words. 
Those splendid actors play for me only, but they do 
not deceive me. My glance is like that of God; it 
enters the heart. Nothing is hidden from me. Noth- 
ing is denied to him who opens and closes the mouth 
of the sack. I am rich enough to buy the consciences 
of those who manage the ministers of the nation, — be 
they ushers or mistresses: isn’t that power? I can 
have beautiful women and tender caresses: isn’t that 
love? Power and pleasure, — don’t those two things 
sum up the whole of your social order? There’s a 
dozen of us such as that in Paris; silent, unknown 
kings, the arbiters of your destinies. Isn’t life 
itself a machine to which money imparts motion? 
Know this: means are confounded with results; you 
will never attain to separating the soul from the 
senses, spirit from matter. Gold is the spirituality 
of your present social being. Bound by one and the 


28 


Gobseck. 


same interest, we — that dozen men — meet together one 
day in every week, at the cafe Themis, near the Pont 
Neuf. There we reveal the mysteries of finance. No 
apparent wealth can mislead us ; we possess the secrets 
of all families. We keep a species of black book , in 
which are recorded most important notes on the public 
credit, on the Bank, on commerce. Casuists of the 
Bourse, we form an Inquisition where the most indif- 
ferent actions of men of any fortune are judged and 
analyzed, and our judgment is always true. One of 
us watches over the judiciary body ; another, the finan- 
cial body ; a third, the administrative body ; a fourth 
the commercial body. As for me, I keep an eye on 
eldest sons, on artists, men of fashion, gamblers, — 
the most stirring part of Paris. Every one whom we 
severally deal with tells us his neighbor’s secrets: 
betrayed passions and bruised vanities are garrulous; 
vices, vengeances, disappointments are the best police 
force in the world. My brethren, like myself, have 
enjoyed all things, are sated with all things, and have 
come to love power and money solely for power and 
money themselves. Here,’ he added, pointing to his 
cold and barren room, 4 the fiery lover, insulted by a 
look, and drawing his sabre at a word, kneels and 
prays to me with clasped hands. Here the proudest 
merchant, here the woman vain of her beauty, here 
the dashing soldier, pray, one and all, with tears of 


G-obsecJc. 


29 


rage or anguish in their eyes. Here the most cele- 
brated artists, here the writer whose name is promised 
to posterity, pray, likewise. Here, too/ he added, 
laying his hand upon his forehead, ‘ are the scales in 
which are weighed the inheritances and the dividends 
of all Paris. Do you think now that there are no 
enjoyments beneath this livid mask whose immobility 
has so often amazed you? ’ he said, turning toward 
me his wan face, which seemed to smell of money. 

“ I returned home stupefied. That shrunken old 
man grew larger; he had changed, before my very 
eyes, into some fantastic image personifying the 
power of gold. Life, men, filled me with horror. 

‘ Are all things to be measured by money ? ’ I asked 
myself. I remember that I did not go to sleep that 
night till very late. Mounds of gold rose up around 
me. The beautiful countess filled my thoughts. I 
confess, to my shame, that her image completely 
eclipsed that of the simple and chaste creature doomed 
to toil and to obscurity. But on the morrow, through 
the mists of waking, the gentle Jenny appeared to me 
in all her beauty, and I thought of her alone.” 

“ Will you have a glass of eau sucree” said the 
viscountess, interrupting Derville. 

“ Gladly,” he replied. 

“ But I don’t see, in all this, anything that concerns 
us,” said Madame de Grandlieu, ringing the bell. 


30 


GobsecTc. 


“ Sardanapalus ! ” exclaimed Derville, launching his 
favorite oath. “Iam going to wake up Mademoiselle 
Camille presently by showing her that her happiness 
has depended, until recently, on papa Gobseck. But 
the old man is now dead, at the age of eighty-nine, 
and the Comte de Restaud will soon come into posses- 
sion of a noble fortune. This needs some explana- 
ion. As for Jenny Malvaut, you know her; she is 
now my wife.” 

“ Poor boy! ” exclaimed the viscountess, “ he would 
tell that before a score of people, with his usual 
frankness.” 

“ Yes, I ’d shout it to the universe,” said the lawyer. 

“ Drink your water, my poor Derville. You ’ll 
never be anything but the happiest and the best of 
men.” 

“ I left you in the rue du Helder, with a countess,” 
cried the uncle, waking from a doze. “ What did you 
do there ? ” 

“ A few days after my conversation with the old 
Dutchman,” resumed Derville, “ I took my licentiate’s 
degree and became, soon after, a barrister. The con- 
fidence the old miser had in me increased greatly. He 
consulted me, gratuitously, on the ticklish affairs in 
which he embarked after obtaining certain data, — 
affairs which, to practical minds, would have seemed 
very dangerous. That man, over whom no human 


G-obsecJc. 


31 


being could have gained any power, listened to my 
counsels with a sort of respect. It is true that they 
usually helped him. At last, on the day when I was 
made head-clerk of the office in which I had worked 
three years, I left the house in the rue des Gres, and 
went to live with my patron, who gave me board and 
lodging, and one hundred and twenty francs a month. 
That was a fine day for me! When I said good-bye 
to the old usurer, he expressed neither friendship nor 
regret; he did not ask me to come and see him; he 
merely gave me one of those glances which seemed to 
reveal in him the gift of second- sight. At the end 
of a week, however, I received a visit from him ; he 
brought me a rather difficult affair, — a dispossession 
case, — and he continued his gratuitous consultations 
with as much freedom as if he paid me. At the end 
of the second year, from 1818 to 1819, my patron — 
a man of pleasure, and very extravagant — became 
involved, and was forced to sell his practice. Al- 
though at that time a lawyer’s practice had not 
acquired the exorbitant value it now possesses, my 
patron almost gave away his in asking no more than 
one hundred and fifty thousand francs for it. An 
active, intelligent, and well-trained lawyer might live 
respectably, pay the interest on that sum, and free 
himself of the debt in ten years, could he only inspire 
confidence in some one who would lend him the pur- 


32 


Gobseck, 


chase-money. I, the seventh son of a small bourgeois 
of Noyon, did not possess one penny, and I knew 
but one capitalist; namely, papa Gobseck. A daring 
thought, and some strange gleam of hope, gave me 
courage to go to him. Accordingly, one evening, I 
slowly walked to the rue des Gres. My heart beat 
violently as I knocked at the door of that gloomy 
house. I remembered what the old miser had told me 
in former days, when I was far, indeed, from imagin- 
ing the violence of the agony which began on the 
threshold of that door. I was now about to pray to 
him like the rest! 4 No, no! * I said to myself, ‘ an 
honest man should keep his dignity under all circum- 
stances; no fortune is worth a meanness; I’ll make 
myself as stiff as he.’ Since my departure, papa 
Gobseck had hired my room, in order to have no other 
neighbor; he had also put a little grated peep-hole 
into the middle of his door, which he did not open 
till he recognized my face. 

44 4 Well! ’ he said, in his fluty little voice, 4 so your 
patron sells his practice. ’ 

44 4 How did you know that? He has not mentioned 
it to a soul but me. ’ 

44 The lips of the old man drew toward the corners 
of his mouth precisely like curtains, and that mute 
smile was accompanied by a frigid glance. 

44 4 It needed that fact to bring you here to me,’ he 


Gobseck. 


83 


said, in a dry tone, and after a pause, during which I 
remained somewhat confounded. 

“ 4 Listen to me, Monsieur Gobseck,’ I said, with 
as much calmness as I was able to muster in presence 
of that old man, who fixed upon me his impassible 
eyes, the clear flame of which disturbed me. 

44 He made a gesture as if to say, 4 Speak.’ 

44 4 1 know how difficult it is to move you. I should 
waste my eloquence in trying to make you see the 
position of a clerk without a penny, whose only hope 
is in you, and who has no other heart in the world but 
yours in which his future is understood. Let us drop 
the question of heart; business is business, and not 
romance or sentimentality. Here are the facts: My 
patron’s practice brings him about twenty thousand 
francs a year, but in my hands I think it would bring 
forty thousand. He wants to sell it for one hundred 
and fifty thousand. I feel, here,’ I continued, striking 
my forehead, 4 that if you will lend me the purchase- 
money I can pay it off in ten years.’ 

4 4 4 That’s talking,’ replied papa Gobseck, stretch- 
ing out his hand and pressing mine. 4 Never, since 
I have been in business,’ he went on, 4 has any 
one declared more plainly the object of his visit. 
Security? ’ he said, looking me over from head to 
foot. 4 Naught ’ — adding, after a pause, 4 How old 
are you? ’ 


3 


34 


GobsecJc. 


“ ‘ Twenty-five in a few days,’ I replied; ‘except 
for that I couldn’t purchase.’ 

“ ‘ True.’ 

“ ‘Well?’ 

“ ‘ Possibly I may do it.’ 

“‘There’s no time to lose; I am likely to have 
competitors who will put up the price.’ 

“ ‘ Bring me the certificate of your birth to-morrow 
morning, and we ’ll talk the matter over. I ’ll think 
of it.’ 

“ The next day, by eight o’clock, I was in the old 
man’s room. He took the official paper, put on his 
spectacles, coughed, spat, wrapped his big coat round 
him, and read the extracts from the register of the 
mayor’s office carefully. Then he turned the paper 
and re-turned it, looked at me, coughed again, wriggled 
in his chair, and said, finally : — 

“ ‘ This is a matter we will try to arrange.’ 
I quivered. ‘I get fifty per cent for my money,’ he 
continued ; ‘ sometimes one hundred, two hundred, 
even five hundred per cent.’ I turned pale at these 
words. ‘ But, in consideration of our acquaintance, 
I shall content myself with twelve and a half per 
cent interest per—’ He hesitated. ‘Well, yes! for 
your sake I will be satisfied with thirteen per cent per 
annum. Will that suit you? ’ 

“ ‘ Yes,’ I replied. 


Grobseck. 


35 


“‘But if it is too much,’ he said, ‘speak out, 
Grotius ’ (he often called me Grotius in fun). 4 In 
asking you thirteen per cent I ply my trade ; consider 
whether you can pay it. I don’t like a man who hob- 
nobs to everything. Is it too much? * 

“ ‘ No,’ I said, ‘ I can meet it by rather more 
privation. ’ 

“ ‘ Parbleu ! ’ he cried, casting his malicious, oblique 
glance upon me; ‘ make your clients pay it.’ 

“‘No, by all the devils!’ I cried; ‘it will be I 
who pay it. I ’d cut my hand off sooner than fleece 
others. ’ 

“ ‘ Fiddle! ’ said papa Gobseck. 

“‘Besides, a lawyer’s fees go by tariff,’ I 
continued. 

“‘They don’t,’ he said. ‘Not for negotiations, 
suits for recovery of funds, compromises. You can 
make thousands of francs, according to the interests 
involved, out of your conferences, trips, drafts of 
deeds, memoranda, and other verbiage. You ’ll have 
to learn that sort of thing. I shall recommend you as 
the cleverest and most knowing of lawyers; I ’ll send 
you such a lot of such cases that all your brother- 
lawyers will burst with jealousy. Werbrust, Palma, 
Gigonnet, my friends, shall give you all their dispos- 
session cases, — and God knows how many they are! 
You ’ll thus have two practices, — the one you buy, 


36 


Gobseck. 


and the one I make for you. You ought to give me 
fifteen per cent, at least, for my hundred and fifty 
thousand francs.’ 

44 4 So be it, but not a penny more,’ I said, with the 
firmness of a man who will grant nothing further. 

44 Papa Gobseck relented at this, and seemed pleased 
with me. 

44 4 I ’ll pay the price to your patron myself,’ he 
said, 4 so as to secure myself a solid hold on the 
security. ’ 

44 4 Oh! yes, take all the security you want.’ 

44 ‘Also, you must give me fifteen bills of exchange, 
acceptances in blank, for ten thousand francs each. ’ 

44 4 Provided that double value be distinctly 
recorded — ’ 

4 4 4 No!’ cried Gobseck, interrupting me. 4 Why 
do you want me to have more confidence in you than 
you have in me?’ I kept silence. 4 And also,’ he 
went on, in a good-humored tone, 4 you will do all my 
business without asking fees, as long as I live; is 
that agreed to ? ’ 

4 4 4 Yes, provided there is no further demand made.’ 

44 4 Right! ’ he said. 4 Ah ga! ’ added the little old 
man, after a momentary pause, his face taking, but 
with difficulty, an air of good-humor, 4 you ’ll allow 
me to go and see you sometimes?’ 

44 4 It will always give me pleasure.’ 


G-obsecJc. 


37 


“ ‘ Yes, but when? In the mornings it would be 
impossible; you have your business and I have mine.’ 

“ ‘ Come in the evening.* 

“ ‘ Oh, no! * he said hastily; 1 you ought to go into 
society and meet your clients; I, too, I have my 
friends at the cafe.* 

“ ‘ His friends! * thought I. ‘ Well, then,’ I said, 
‘why not take the dinner-hour? ’ 

“ k That ’s it,* said Gobseck. k After the Bourse, 
about five o’clock. You’ll see me every Wednesday 
and Saturday. We talk of our affairs like a couple 
of friends. Ha! ha! I can be gay sometimes. Give 
me the wing of a partridge and a glass of champagne, 
and we ’ll talk . I know many things that can be told 
in these days ; things which will teach you to know 
men and, above all, women.’ 

u ‘ So be it for the partridge and the champagne,’ I 
said. 

“ ‘ Don’t be extravagant, or you ’ll lose my confi- 
dence. Get an old woman-servant, — only one, mind; 
don’t set up an establishment. I shall come and see 
you to look after your health. I ’ve capital invested 
on your head, he ! he ! and I ought to keep informed 
about you. Come back this evening, and briug your 
patron. ’ 

“ ‘ Might I be informed, if there is no indiscretion 
in asking,’ I said to the old man when we reached the 


38 


Grobseck. 


threshold of his door, ‘ of what possible importance 
the certificate of my birth could be in this affair? 7 

“ Jean-Esther van Gobseck shrugged his shoulders, 
smiled maliciously, and replied : ‘ How foolish youth 
is ! Know this, my learned barrister, — you must 
know it to keep from being cheated, — before the age 
of thirty honesty and talent are still a sort of mortgage 
to be taken on a man. After that age he is not to be 
trusted. ’ 

“ So saying, he shut the door. 

“ Three months later I became a barrister, and 
soon after I had the great good-fortune, madame, of 
being chosen to undertake the business concerning the 
restitution of your property. The winning of that suit 
made me known. In spite of the enormous interest I 
paid Gobseck, I was able, in five years, to pay off my 
indebtedness. I married Jenny Malvaut, whom I love 
sincerely. The likeness between our two lives, our 
toil, our successes, increased the tie between us. 
Jenny’s uncle, a rich farmer, died, leaving her seventy 
thousand francs, which helped to pay off my debt. 
Since that day my life has been nothing but happi- 
ness and prosperity — no need, therefore, to say more 
about myself ; nothing is so intolerably dull as a happy 
man. Let us go back to our personages. About a 
year after I bought my practice, I was enticed, almost 
against my will, to a bachelor’s breakfast. The party 


Gobseek. 


39 


) 

was the result of a wager lost by one of my legal 
friends to a young man then much in vogue in the 
world of fashion. Monsieur Maxime de Trailles, the 
flower of dandyism in those days, enjoyed a great 
reputation — ” 

“And still enjoys it,” said the Comte de Born, 
interrupting Derville. “No man wears a coat with 
more style or drives a tandem better than he. Maxime 
has the art of playing cards, and eating and drink- 
ing with more grace than the rest of the world put 
together. 1 He knows what is what in horses, hats, and 
pictures. The women dote upon him. He always 
spends a hundred thousand francs a year, though no 
one ever heard of his owning property or a single 
coupon of interest. A type of the knight-errant of 
salons, boudoirs, and the boulevards, — an amphibious 
species, half-man, half-woman, — Comte Maxime de 
Trailles is a singular being, good at everything and 
good for nothing, feared and despised, knowing most 
things, yet ignorant at bottom, just as capable of doing 
a benefit as of committing a crime, sometimes base, 
sometimes noble, more covered with mud than stained 
with blood, having anxieties but no remorse, caring 
more for digestion than for thought, feigning pas- 
sions and feeling none. He ’s a brilliant ring that 
might connect the galleys with the highest society. 
Maxime de Trailles is a man who belongs to that 


40 


G-obsecJc. 


eminently intelligent class from which sprang Mira- 
beau, Pitt, Richelieu, but which more frequently 
supplies the world with Comtes de Horn, Fouquier- 
Tinvilles, and Coignards.” 

“Well!” resumed Derville, after listening to these 
remarks of Madame de Grandlieu’s brother. “I had 
heard a great deal of that personage from poor Pere 
Goriot, who was one of my clients ; but I had always 
avoided, when I met him in society, the dangerous 
honor of his acquaintance. However, my friend urged 
me so strongly to go to his breakfast that I could not 
escape doing so without being accused of austerity. 
You can hardly conceive of a bachelor’s breakfast, 
madame. It is a magnificent show of the greatest 
rarities, — the luxury of a miser who is sumptuous 
for one day only. On entering, one is struck by the 
order that reigns on a table so dazzling with silver 
and glass and damasked linen. Life is there in its 
flower; the young men are so graceful, so smiling, 
they speak low, they resemble the newly wedded, — 
all seems virgin about them. Two hours later you 
would think that same room was a battlefield after the 
battle. On all sides broken glasses, twisted and 
soiled napkins; dishes half-eaten, and repugnant to 
the eye ; shouts that split the ears, sarcastic toasts, a 
fire of epigrams, malignant jests, purple faces, eyes 
inflamed, no longer capable of expression, — involun- 


Crobseck . 


41 


tary confidences which tell all ! In the midst of this 
infernal racket, some break bottles, others troll songs, 
they challenge each other, they kiss or fight ; an odious 
smell arises of a hundred odors, shouts on a hundred 
tones ; no one knows what he eats, or what he drinks, 
or what he says ; some are sad, others garrulous ; one 
man is monomaniacal, and repeats the same word like 
a clock with the striker going ; another man wants to 
command the riot, and the wisest propose an orgy. If 
any man entered the room in his senses he would think 
it a Bacchanalian revel. It was in the midst of such a 
tumult as this that Monsieur de Trailles attempted to 
insinuate himself into my good graces. I had pre- 
served my senses pretty well, for I was on my guard. 
As for him, though he affected to be decently drunk, 
he was perfectly cool, and full of his own projects. 
I can’t say how it was done, but by the time we left 
Grignon’s that evening, at nine o’clock, he had com- 
pletely bewitched me, and I had promised to take 
him, the next day, to papa Gobseck. The words, 
honor, virtue, countess, honest woman, adored woman, 
misery, despair, shone, thanks to his gilded language, 
like magic through his talk. When I awoke the next 
morning, and tried to remember what I had done the 
day before, I had much difficulty in putting my ideas 
together. However, it seemed to me that the daughter 
of one of my clients was in danger of losing her repu- 


42 


Gobseck. 


tation and the respect and love of her husband, if she 
could not obtain some fifty thousand francs that morn- 
ing. She had debts: losses at cards, coachmaker’s 
bill, money lost I knew not how. My fascinating 
friend had assured me that she was rich enough to 
repair, by a few years of economy, the damage she 
was about to do to her fortune. Not until morning 
did I perceive the insistency of my new friend; and 
I certainly had no idea of the importance it was for 
papa Gobseck to make peace with this dandy. Just 
as I was getting out of bed Monsieur de Trailles came 
to see me. 

“ ‘ Monsieur le comte,’ I said, after the usual com- 
pliments had passed, 4 I do not see that you need my 
introduction in presenting yourself to van Gobseck, 
the most polite and harmless of all capitalists. He ’ll 
give you the money if he has it, or, rather, if you can 
present him with sufficient security. ’ 

44 ‘ Monsieur,’ he replied, ‘I have no wish what- 
ever to force you into doing me a service, even though 
you may have promised it.’ 

“ 4 Sardanapalus ! ’ I said to myself; 4 shall I let • 
this man think I go back on my word ? ’ 

44 ‘ I had the honor to tell you yesterday,’ he con- 
tinued, 4 that I have quarrelled, most inopportunely, 
with papa Gobseck. Now, as there is no other money- 
lender in Paris who can fork out at once, and the first 


GobsecTc. 


43 


of the month too, a hundred thousand francs, I begged 
you to make my peace with him. But let us say no 
more about it.’ 

“ Monsieur de Trailles looked at me with an air 
that was politely insulting, and prepared to leave the 
room. 

“ 4 1 am ready to take you to him,’ I said. 

“ When we reached the rue des Gres the dandy 
looked about him with an attention and an air of 
anxiety which surprised me. His face became livid, 
reddened and turned yellow in turn, and drops of 
sweat stood on his forehead as he saw the door of 
Gobseck’s house. Just as we got out of his cabriolet, 
a hackney-coach entered the rue des Gres. The fal- 
con eye of the young man enabled him, no doubt, to 
distinguish a woman in the depths of that vehicle. 
An expression of almost savage joy brightened his 
face; he called to a little urchin who was passing, 
and gave him his horse to hold. We went up at once 
to the money-lender. 

“ ‘ Monsieur Gobseck,’ I said, 1 1 bring you one of 
my intimate friends (whom I distrust as I do the 
devil,’ I added in his ear). ‘ To oblige me, I am sure 
you w r ill restore him to your good graces (at the usual 
cost), and you will get him out of his present trouble 
(if you choose).’ 

“Monsieur de Trailles bowed to the usurer, sat 


44 


GobsecJc. 


clown, and assumed, as if to listen to him, a courtier- 
like attitude, the graceful lowliness of which would 
have fascinated you. But my Gobseck sat still on 
his chair, at the corner of his fire, motionless, impas- 
sible. He looked like the statue of Voltaire seen at 
night under the peristyle of the Theatre-Francjais. 
He slightly lifted, by way of bow, the shabby cap 
with which he covered his head, and the small amount 
of yellow skull he thus exhibited completed his resem- 
blance to that marble statue. 

“ ‘ I have no money except for my clients,’ he said. 

“ * That means that you are very angry with me 
for going elsewhere to ruin myself ? ’ said the count, 
laughing. 

“ ‘ Ruin yourself! ’ said Gobseck, in a sarcastic 
tone. 

“ ‘ Do you mean that a man can’t be ruined if he 
owns nothing ? I defy you to find in all Paris a finer 
capital than this , ’ cried the dandy, rising, and twirling 
round upon his heels. 

“ This buffoonery, which was partly serious, had 
no power to move Gobseck. 

“ 4 Am I not the intimate friend of Ronquerolles, de 
Marsay, Franchessini, the two Vandenesses, Ajuda- 
Pinto, — in short, all the young bloods in Paris? At 
cards I ’m the ally of a prince and an ambassador 
whom you know. I have my revenues in London, at 


G-obsecJc. 


45 


Carlsbad, Baden, Bath, Spa. Don’t you think that 
the most brilliant of industries?’ 

44 4 Surely.’ 

u 4 You make a sponge of me, mordieu! you encour- 
age me to swell out in the great world only to squeeze 
me at a crisis. But all you money-lenders are sponges 
too, and death will squeeze you.’ 

“ 4 Possibly.’ 

“ 4 Without spendthrifts what would become of you? 
We are one, like body and soul.’ 

44 4 True.’ 

4 4 4 Come, shake hands, old papa Gobseck, and show 
your magnanimity.’ 

44 4 You have come to me,’ said Gobseck, coldly, 

4 because Girard, Palma, Werbrust, and Gigonnet have 
their bellies full of your notes, which they are offering 
everywhere at fifty per cent loss. Now as they prob- 
ably only gave you one-half of their face value, those 
notes are not worth twenty-five francs on the hundred. 
No, I thank you! Could I, with any decency,’ con- 
tinued Gobseck, 4 lend a single penny to a man who 
owes thirty thousand francs, and does n’t possess a 
farthing? You lost ten thousand francs night before 
last at Baron de Nucingen’s ball.’ 

4 4 4 Monsieur,’ replied the count, with rare impu- 
dence, looking at the old man haughtily, 4 my doings 
are none of your business. He whose notes are not 
due owes nothing.’ 


46 


Gobsech. 


44 ‘True.’ 

“ 4 My notes will be paid.’ 

“ 4 Possibly.’ 

44 4 The question between us reduces itself, at this 
moment, to whether I present you sufficient security 
for the sum I wish to borrow.’ 

“ 4 Right. ’ 

44 The noise of a carriage stopping before the door 
echoed through the room. 

4 4 4 1 will now fetch something that will probably 
satisfy you,’ said Monsieur de Trailles, rising, and 
turning to leave the room. 

4 4 4 O my son! ’ cried Gobseck, rising too, and 
stretching out his arms to me as soon as the young 
man had disappeared, 4 if he only brings me good 
security, you have saved my life ! I should have died ! 
Werbrust and Gigonnet meant to play me a trick. 
Thanks to you, I shall have a good laugh to-night at 
their expense.’ 

44 The old man’s joy had something frightful about 
it. It was the sole moment of expansion or feeling 
I ever saw in him. Rapid and fleeting as it was, that 
joy will never pass from my memory. 

44 4 Do me the pleasure to stay here,’ he said. 

4 Though I ’m well-armed and sure of my shot, like a 
man who has hunted tigers and boarded ships to con- 
quer or die, I distrust that elegant scoundrel.’ 


Gobseck. 


47 


“ He sat down again, this time in an armchair before 
his desk. His face was once more calm and livid. 

‘ Ho! ho! ’ he said, suddenly turning round to 
me; 4 you are no doubt going to see that handsome 
creature I once told you about. I hear an aristocratic 
step in the passage/ 

4 4 Sure enough, the young man now returned, lead- 
ing a lady, in whom I recognized that countess whom 
Gobseck had once described to me, — a daughter of 
Pere Goriot. The countess did not at first see me, 
for I was standing back in the recess of a window, 
my face to the glass. As she entered the damp and 
gloomy room she cast a look of fear and distrust at 
Maxime. She was so beautiful that in spite of her 
faults I pitied her. Some terrible anguish shook her 
heart ; her proud and noble features wore a convulsive 
expression, scarcely restrained. That young man 
must by this time have become to her an evil genius. 

I admired Gobseck, who, four years earlier, had fore- 
seen the fate of these two beings at the time of their 
^rst note. 4 Probably, ’ I said to myself, ‘ that mon- 
ster with the face of an angel rules her in all pos- 
sible ways, through vanity, jealousy, pleasure, the 
triumphs of society. ’ ” 

44 But,” cried Madame de Grandlieu, interrupting 
Derville, 44 the very virtues of this woman have been 
weapons for him ; he has made her weep tears of devo- 


48 


Gobseck. 


tion ; he has roused in her soul the generosity of our 
sex; he has abused her tenderness, and sold to her, 
at a cruel price, her criminal joys.” 

“ I confess to you,” said Derville, who did not 
understand the signs that Madame de Grandlieu was 
making to him, “that I did not think of the fate of 
that unhappy creature, so brilliant to the eyes of the 
world, and so dreadful to those who could read her 
heart. No, I shuddered with horror as I looked at 
her slayer, that youth with a brow so pure, a mouth 
so fresh, a smile so gracious, teeth so white; a man 
in the semblance of an angel! They stood at this 
moment before a judge who examined them as an 
old Dominican of the sixteenth century might have 
watched the torturing of two Moors in the cellars of 
the Inquisition. 

“ 4 Monsieur, is there any way of obtaining the 
value of these diamonds, reserving to myself the right 
to redeem them ? ’ she said, in a trembling voice, hold- 
ing out to him a casket. 

44 4 Yes, inadame,’ I replied, interposing, and coming 
forward. 

44 She looked at me, recognized me, gave a shudder, 
and then cast upon me that glance which says, in 
every country, 4 Silence! ’ 

44 4 The matter you propose,' I continued, ‘ consti- 
tutes an act which we lawyers call sale with right of 


G-obseck. 


49 


redemption, — a transaction which consists in yielding 
and conveying property, either real or personal, for a 
given time, at the expiration of which the property 
can be taken back at a previously fixed price.’ 

“ She breathed more easily. Comte Maxime frowned ; 
he thought the usurer would give a smaller sum for the 
diamonds if subject to this condition. Gobseck, im- 
movable, picked up his magnifier, and silently opened 
the casket. Were I to live a hundred years I could 
never forget the picture his face presented to our eyes. 
His pale cheeks colored; his eyes, in which the glitter 
of the stones seemed to be reflected, sparkled with 
unnatural fire. He rose, went to the light, held the 
diamonds close to his toothless mouth as if he wanted 
to devour them. He mumbled a few vague words, 
lifting, one after the other, the bracelets, necklaces, 
diadems, sprays, — all of which he held to the light to 
judge of their water, their whiteness and cutting. He 
took them from the casket, and he laid them back, he 
played with them to make their fires sparkle, seeming 
more of a child than an old man, — or, rather, a child 
and an old man combined. 

“ ‘ Fine! they must have been worth three hundred 
thousand francs before the Revolution. What water ! 
True diamonds of Asia! from Golconda orVisapur! 
Do you know their value? No, no, Gobseck is the 
only man in Paris who knows how to appraise them. 

4 


/ 


50 


Gobseck. 


Under the Empire it would still have cost two hundred 
thousand francs to collect that set, but now — * He 
made a gesture of disgust, and added, ‘ Now dia- 
monds are losing value every day. Brazil is flooding 
us with stones, — less white than those of India. 
Women no longer wear them, except at court. Does 
madame go to court? ’ 

“While delivering this verdict he was still examin- 
ing, with indescribable delight, each stone in the 
casket. 

“‘No blemish!’ he kept saying, ‘One blemish! 
Here ’s a flaw — Beautiful stone! ’ 

“ His pallid face was so illumined by the light of 
these stones, that I compared it in my own mind to 
those old greenish mirrors we find in provincial inns, 
which receive the reflection of a light without return- 
ing it, and give an appearance of apoplexy to the 
traveller who is bold enough to look into them. 

“ ‘ Well?’ said the count, striking Gobseck on the 
shoulder. 

“ The old child quivered; he laid his toys on the 
desk, sat down, and became once more a usurer, hard, 
cold, polished as a marble column. 

“ ‘ How much do you want? ’ 

“ ‘ One hundred thousand francs for three years,’ 
replied the count. ‘ Can we have them ? ’ 

“ ‘ Possibly,’ answered Gobseck, taking from their 


Gobseck. 


51 


mahogany box a pair of scales of inestimable worth 
for accuracy, — his jewel-case, as it were ! He weighed 
the stones, valuing, at a glance, Heaven knows how! 
the weight of the settings. During this time the 
expression on the money-lender’s face wavered between 
joy and sternness. The countess was lost in a stupor, 
which I noted carefully ; she seemed to be measuring 
the depth of the precipice down which she was falling. 
There was still some lingering remorse in the soul of 
that woman; it needed, perhaps, but a single effort, 
a hand stretched charitably out, to save her. I would 
try it. 

“ 4 Are these diamonds yours, madame? ’ I asked, 
in a clear voice. 

“ 4 Yes, monsieur,’ she replied, giving me a haughty 
glance. 

44 4 Make out that redemption-deed, meddler,’ said 
Gobseck to me, pointing to his seat at the desk. 

44 4 Madame is no doubt married? ’ I continued. 

44 She bowed her head quickly. 

4 4 4 1 shall not make out the deed! ’ I exclaimed. 

4 4 4 Why not? ’ said Gobseck. 

4 4 4 Why not? ’ I echoed, drawing the old man to the 
window, and speaking in a low voice. 4 Because, this 
woman being femme couverte , the deed of redemption 
would be null, and you could not claim ignorance of a 
fact proved by the deed itself. You would be obliged 


52 


Gobseck. 


to produce the diamonds deposited in your hands, the 
weight, value, or cutting of which are described in 
the deed — ’ 

“Gobseck interrupted me by a nod, and then turned 
to the two sinners. 

44 4 He is right,’ he said. 4 The terms are changed — 
Eighty thousand francs down, and you leave the dia- 
monds with me, ’ adding, in a muffled tone, 4 possession 
is nine-tenths of the law — ’ 

44 4 But — ’ interposed the young man. 

44 4 Take it, or leave it,’ said Gobseck, giving the 
casket to the countess. 4 1 have too many risks to 
run.’ 

44 4 Madame,’ I whispered in her ear, 4 you would do 
better to throw yourself on your husband’s mercy.’ 

44 The usurer no doubt guessed my words from the 
movement of my lips, for he cast a severe look at me. 
The young man’s face became livid. The hesitation 
of the countess was obvious. The count went closely 
up to her ; and, though he spoke very low, I heard him 
say: — 

44 4 Farewell, my Anastasie, be happy! As for me, 
my troubles will be over to-morrow.’ 

4 4 4 Monsieur,’ cried the young woman, addressing 
Gobseck, 4 I accept your offer.’ 

44 4 Well, well!’ replied the old man, 4 it takes a 
good deal to bring you to terms, fair lady.’ 


Gobseck. 


53 


44 He drew a check for fifty thousand francs on the 
Bank of France, and gave it to the countess. 

44 4 And now,’ he said, with a smile like that of 
Voltaire, 4 I shall complete the sum with notes for 
thirty thousand francs, the soundness of which can- 
not be questioned. They are as good as gold itself. 
Monsieur has just said to me: My notes will be 
•paid . 9 

44 So saying, he took out and handed to the countess 
the notes of the young man, protested the night before 
to several of his brother usurers, who had, no doubt, 
sold them to Gobseck at a low price, as comparatively 
worthless. The young man uttered a sort of roar, in 
the midst of which could be heard the words: 4 Old 
scoundrel ! ’ 

44 Papa Gobseck did not move one muscle of his 
face, but he took from a box a pair of pistols, and 
said, coldly : — 

44 4 As the insulted party, I fire first. * 

44 4 Maxime, you owe monsieur an apology,’ cried 
the trembling countess. 

4 4 4 I did not intend to offend you,’ stammered the 
young man. 

44 4 I know that,’ replied Gobseck, tranquilly; 4 you 
merely intended not to pay your notes.’ 

44 The countess rose, bowed, and left the room, 
apparently horrified. Monsieur de Trailles was forced 


54 


Gobseck. 


to follow her; but before he did so he turned and 
said: — 

44 4 If either of you betray one word of this, I shall 
have your blood, or you mine.’ 

44 4 Amen! ’ replied Gobseck, putting away his pis- 
tols. 4 To risk your blood, you must have some, my 
lad, and there ’s nothing but mud in your ¥61118.’ 

44 When the outer door was closed and the two car- 
riages had driven away, Gobseck rose and began to 
dance about the room, crying out : — 

44 * I have the diamonds! I have the diamonds! the 
fine diamonds! what diamonds! not dear! Ha! ha! 
ha! Werbrust and Gigonnet, you thought you ’d catch 
old papa Gobseck ! Ego sum papa ! I ’m the master 
of all of you! Paid in full! paid in full! What fools 
they ’ll look to-night when I tell ’em the affair over 
the dominos! ’ 

44 This gloomy joy, this ferocity of a savage, excited 
by the possession of a few white pebbles, made me 
shudder. I was speechless and stupefied. 

4 4 4 Ha! ha! there you are, my boy! We’ll dine 
together. We ’ll amuse ourselves at your house, for I 
haven’t any home; and those eating-house fellows, 
with their gravies and sauces and wines, are fit to 
poison the devil ! ’ 

44 The expression of my face seemed to bring him 
back to his usual cold impassibility. 


GrobsecJc. 


55 


44 4 You can’t conceive it, can you? ’ he said, sitting 
down by the hearth, and putting a tin sauce-pan full 
of milk on the hob. 4 Will you breakfast with me? 
There may be enough for two.’ 

44 4 Thank you, no,’ I replied. 4 I never breakfast 
till twelve o’clock.’ 

44 At that instant hasty steps were heard in the cor- 
ridor. Some one stopped before Gobseck’s door, and 
rapped upon it several times, with a sort of fury. 
The usurer looked through the peep-hole before he 
opened the door, and admitted a man about thirty- 
five years of age, who had, no doubt, seemed to him 
inoffensive, in spite of his evident anger. The new- 
comer, who was simply dressed, looked like the late 
Due de Richelieu. It was the count , whom you have 
often met, and who (if you will permit the remark) 
has the haughty bearing of the statesmen of your 
faubourg. 

4 4 4 Monsieur,’ he said to Gobseck, 4 my wife has 
just left this house. 

4 4 4 Possibly.’ 

4 4 4 Well, monsieur, don’t you understand me? ’ 

44 4 I have not the honor to know your wife,’ replied 
the usurer. 4 Many persons have called here this 
morning: women, men, girls who looked like young 
men, and young men who looked like girls. It would 
be difficult foi me to — ’ 


56 


GobsecJc. 


44 4 A truce to jesting, monsieur; I am talking of the 
woman who has just left this house.’ 

44 4 How am I to know if she is your wife,’ said the 
usurer, 4 inasmuch as I have never before had the 
advantage of seeing you ? ’ 

44 4 You are mistaken, Monsieur Gobseck,’ said the 
count, in a tone of the deepest irony. 4 We met one 
morning in my wife’s bedroom. You came for the 
money of a note signed by her, — a note for which she 
had not received the value. ’ 

44 4 It is not my affair to know whether she received 
its value or not,’ replied Gobseck, with a malicious 
glance at the count. 4 I had discounted her note for 
one of my brethren in business. Besides, monsieur,’ 
he added, not excited or hurried in speech, and slowly 
pouring some coffee into his pan of milk, 4 you must 
permit me to remark, I see no proof that you have any 
right to make these remonstrances in my house. I 
came of age in the year sixty-one of the last century. ’ 
44 4 Monsieur, you have just bought family diamonds 
which do not belong to my wife.’ 

4 4 4 Without considering myself obliged to let you 
into the secrets of my business, I must tell you, Mon- 
sieur le comte, that if your diamonds have been taken 
by Madame la comtesse, you should have notified all 
jewellers by circular letter not to buy them ; otherwise, 
she may sell them piecemeal.’ 


GrobsecJc. 


57 


“ * Monsieur,’ cried the count, 4 you know my wife.’ 

“ ‘Dol?’ 

“ 4 She is, in legal phrase, femme converted 

44 4 Possibly.’ 

44 ‘ She has no legal right to dispose of those 
diamonds.’ 

“ 4 True.’ 

44 4 Well, then, monsieur? ’ 

44 4 Well, monsieur, I know your wife; she is femme 
couverte , — that is, under your control ; so be it, and 
she is under other controls as well ; but — I — know 
nothing of — your diamonds. If Madame la comtesse 
signs notes of hand, she can, no doubt, do other busi- 
ness, — buy diamonds, receive diamonds to sell again. 
That often happens.’ 

44 4 Adieu, monsieur,’ said the count, pale with 
anger; 4 there are courts of justice.’ 

44 4 True.’ 

4 4 4 Monsieur here,’ continued the count, pointing 
to me, 4 must have witnessed the sale.’ 

4 4 4 Possibly.’ 

44 The count started to leave the room. Suddenly, 
aware of the seriousness of the affair, I interposed 
between the belligerent parties. 

4 4 4 Monsieur le comte,’ I said, 4 you are right, and 
Monsieur Gobseck is not wrong. You could not sue 
him without bringing your wife into court, and all the 


58 


GobsecTc. 


odium of this affair would fall on her. I am a bar- 
rister, but I owe it to myself, personally, even more 
than to my official character, to tell you that the dia- 
monds of which you speak were bought by Monsieur 
Gobseck in my presence ; I think, however, that you 
would do wrong to contest the validity of that sale, 
the articles of which are never easy to recognize. In 
equity, you would be right; legally, you would fail. 
Monsieur Gobseck is too honest a man to deny that 
this sale has been made to his profit, especially when 
my conscience and my duty oblige me to declare it. 
But suppose you bring a suit, Monsieur le comte, the 
issue would be very doubtful. I advise you, there- 
fore, to compromise with Monsieur Gobseck, who 
might withdraw of his own good-will, but to whom 
you would, in any case, be obliged to return the 
purchase-money. Consent to a deed of redemption in 
six or eight months, a year even, a period of time 
which will enable you to pay the sum received by 
Madame la comtesse, — unless, indeed, you would 
prefer to buy the diamonds back at once, giving 
security for the payment. ’ 

“ The usurer was sopping his bread in his coffee, 
and eating his breakfast with quiet indifference ; but 
when I said the word compromise, he looked at me as 
if to say : — 

“ ‘ The scamp! how he profits by my lessons! ’ 


Gobseck. 


59 


“ I returned his look with a glance which he under- 
stood perfectly well. The whole affair was doubtful 
and base; it was necessary to compromise. Gobseck 
could not take refuge in denial, because I should tell 
the truth. The count thanked me with a friendly 
smile. After a discussion, in which Gobseck’s clever- 
ness and greed would have put to shame the diplomacy 
of a congress, I drew up a deed, by which the count 
admitted having received from the money-lender the 
sum of eighty-five thousand francs, including interest, 
on repayment of which sum Gobseck bound himself 
to return the diamonds. 

“‘What hopeless extravagance!’ cried the hus- 
band, as he signed the deed. ‘ How is it possible to 
bridge that yawning gulf ? ’ 

“‘Monsieur,’ said Gobseck, gravely, ‘have you 
many children ? ’ 

“ That question made the count quiver as if, like an 
able surgeon, the usurer had laid his finger suddenly 
on the seat of a disease. The husband did not 
answer. 

“‘Well!’ resumed Gobseck, understanding that 
painful silence. ‘ I know your history by heart. That 
woman is a demon whom, perhaps, you still love; I 
am not surprised ; she moved even me. But you may 
wish to save your fortune, and secure it to one, or, 
perhaps, two of your children. Well, cast yourself 


60 


Gobseck. 


into the vortex of society, gamble, appear to lose 
your fortune, and come and see Gobseck frequently. 
The world will say that I am a Jew, a usurer, a pirate, 
and have ruined you. I don’t care for that! If any 
one openly insults me I can shoot him ; no one handles 
sword or pistol better than your humble servant ; and 
everybody knows it. But find a friend, if you can, to 
'whom you can make a fictitious sale of your property, 
— don’t you call that, in your legal tongue, making a 
trust?’ he said, turning to me. 

44 The count seemed entirely absorbed by his own 
thoughts, and he left us, saying to Gobseck : — 

‘“I shall bring you the money to-morrow; have 
the diamonds ready for me?’ 

44 4 He looks to me as stupid as an honest man,’ 
said Gobseck, when the count had gone. 

44 4 Say, rather, as stupid as a man who loves 
passionately.’ 

44 4 The count is to pay you for drawing that deed,’ 
said the old man, as I left him. 

44 Some days after these scenes, which had initiated 
me into the terrible mysteries in the lives of fashion- 
able women, I was surprised to see the count enter my 
own office early one morning. 

4 4 4 Monsieur,’ he said, 4 I have come to consult you 
on very serious interests, assuring you that I feel the 
most entire confidence in your character, — as I hope 


Gob seek. 


61 


to prove to you. Your conduct towards Madame de 
Grandlieu is above praise.’ 

44 Thus you see, Madame la vicomtesse,” said Der- 
ville, interrupting his narrative, “ that I have received 
from you a thousandfold the value of a very simple 
action. I bowed respectfully, and told him I had 
done no more than the duty of an honest man. 

44 4 Well, monsieur,’ said the count, ‘ I have obtained 
much information about the singular personage to 
whom you owe your practice. From all I hear I judge 
that Gobseck belongs to the school of cynical philos- 
ophers. What do you think of his honesty? ’ 

44 * Monsieur le comte,’ I replied, 4 Gobseck is my 
benefactor — at fifteen per cent,’ I added, laughing. 

4 But that little avarice of his does not justify me in 
drawing a likeness of him for the benefit of strangers.’ 

44 4 Speak out, monsieur; your frankness cannot 
injure either Gobseck or yourself. I don’t expect to 
find an angel in a money-lender.’ 

4 4 4 Papa Gobseck,’ I then said, 4 is profoundly con- 
vinced of one principle, which rules his conduct. 
According to him, money is merchandise which may, 
in all security of conscience, be sold cheap or dear, 
according to circumstances. A capitalist is, in his 
eyes, a man who enters, by the rate of interest which 
he claims for his money, as partner by anticipation in 
all enterprises and all lucrative speculations. Apart 


62 


GobsecTc. 


from these financial principles and his philosophical 
observations on human nature, which lead him to 
behave like a usurer, I am confidently persuaded that, 
outside of his own particular business, he is the most 
upright and the most scrupulous man in Paris. There 
are two men in that man: he is miserly and philo- 
sophical ; great and petty. If I were to die, leaving 
children, I should make him their guardian. That, 
monsieur, is what experience has shown me of 
Gobseck. I know nothing of his past life. He may 
have been a pirate ; he may have traversed the whole 
earth, trafficking in diamonds or men, women or state 
secrets; but I ’ll swear that no human soul was ever 
better tried or more powerfully tempered. The day 
on which I took him the sum which paid off a debt I 
had incurred to him at fifteen per cent interest, I asked 
him (not without some oratorical precautions) what 
motive had led him to make me pay such enormous 
interest, and why, wishing, as he did, to oblige me, 
his friend, he had not made the benefit complete. 
“ My son,” he replied, “ I relieved you of all gratitude 
by giving you the right to think you owed me noth- 
ing; consequently, we are the best friends in the 
world.” That speech, monsieur, will explain the man 
to you better than any possible words of mine.’ 

“ ‘ My decision is irrevocably made,’ said the count. 

‘ Prepare the necessary deeds to transfer my whole 


Gobseck. 


63 


property to Gobseck. I can rely on none but you, 
monsieur, to draw up the counter-deed, by which he 
declares that this sale is fictitious, and that he binds 
himself to place my fortune, administered as he knows 
how to administer it, in the hands of my eldest son 
when the lad attains his majority. Now, monsieur, I 
am compelled to make a statement to you. I dare not 
keep that deed in my own house. The attachment of 
my son to his mother makes me fear to tell him of 
that counter-deed. May I ask you to be its deposi- 
tary? In case of his death, Gobseck is to make you 
legatee of my property. All is thus provided for. , 

44 The count was silent for a few moments, and 
seemed much agitated. 

44 4 Pardon me, monsieur/ he went on, 4 I suffer 
terribly; my health causes me the greatest anxiety. 
Recent troubles have shaken my vital powers cruelly, 
and necessitate the great step I am now taking.* 

4 4 4 Monsieur/ I replied , 4 allow me, in the first place, 
to thank you for the confidence you have in me. But 
I must justify it by pointing out to you that by this 
action you disinherit, utterly, your — other children. 
They bear your name. Were they only the children 
of a woman once loved, now fallen, they have a right 
to some means, at least, of existence. I declare to 
you that I cannot accept the duty with which you 
honor me, unless their future is secured.* 


64 


GobsecTc. 


44 These words made the count tremble violently. 
A few tears came to his eyes, and he pressed my 
hand. 

44 4 I did not wholly know you till this moment,’ he 
said; 4 you have just given me both pain and pleasure. 
We will fix the share of those children in the counter- 
deed. ’ 

44 1 accompanied him to the door of my office, and 
it seemed to me that I saw his features relax with 
satisfaction at the sense that he was doing an act of 
justice. You see, now, Camille, how young women 
are led into fatal gulfs. Sometimes a mere dance, an 
air sung to a piano, a day spent in the country, lead 
to terrible disasters; vanity, pride, trust in a smile, 
folly, giddiness, — all lead to it. Shame, Remorse, 
and Misery are three Furies into whose hands all 
women fall, infallibly, the moment they pass the 
limits of — ” 

44 My poor Camille is half -dead with sleep,” said the 
viscountess, interrupting Derville. 44 Go to bed, my 
dear; your heart doesn’t need such terrifying pictures 
to keep it pure and virtuous.” 

Camille de Grandlieu understood her mother, and 
left the room. 

44 You went a little too far, my dear Monsieur 
Derville,” said the viscountess. 44 Lawyers are not 
mothers of families or preachers.” 


GobsecJc. 


65 


“ But the newspapers tell — ” 

“ My poor Derville! ” said Madame de Grandlieu, 
interrupting him, “I don’t know you! Do you sup- 
pose that my daughter reads the newspapers? Go 
on,” she said, after a momentary pause. 

“ Three days later, the deeds were executed by the 
count, in favor of Gobseck — ” 

u You can call him the Comte de Restaud, now that 
my daughter is not here,” said the viscountess. 

“ So be it,” said the lawyer. “ Well, a long time 
passed after that scene, and I had not received the 
counter-deed, which was to have been returned to me 
for safe-keeping. In Paris, barristers are so hurried 
along by the current of affairs that they cannot give 
to their clients’ interests any greater attention than 
clients demand. Nevertheless, one day when Gobseck 
was dining with me, I remembered to ask him if he 
knew why I had not heard anything more from Mon- 
sieur de Restaud. 

“ ‘ There ’s a very good reason why,’ he answered; 
* that gentleman is dying. He is one of those tender 
souls who don’t know how to kill grief, and so let 
grief kill them. Life is a toil, a trade, and people 
should take the trouble to learn it. When a man 
knows life, having experienced its pains, his fibre 
knits, and acquires a certain suppleness which enables 
him to command his feelings; he makes his nerves 

5 


GobsecJc. 


into steel springs which bend without breaking. If 
his stomach is good, a man can live as long as the 
cedars of Lebanon, which are famous trees.’ 

“ ‘ Will the count die? ’ 

“ ‘ Possibly. You ’ll have a juicy affair in that 
legacy.’ 

“ I looked at my man, and said, in order to sound 
him, ‘ Explain to me why the count and I are the only 
two beings in whom you have taken an interest.’ 

“ ‘ Because you and he are the only ones who have 
trusted in me without reservations,’ he replied. 

“Although this answer induced me to suppose that 
Gobseck would not take advantage of his position in 
case the counter-deed was lost, I resolved to go and 
see the count. After parting from the old man, I went 
to the rue du Helder, and was shown into a salon 
where the countess was playing with her children. 
When she heard my name announced, she rose hastily 
and came to meet me; then she sat down without a 
word, and pointed to an armchair near the fire. She 
put upon her face that impenetrable mask beneath 
which women of the world know so well how to hide 
their passions. Griefs had already faded that face; 
the exquisite lines, which were always its chief merit, 
alone remained to tell of her beauty. 

“ ‘ It is essential, madame,’ I said, ‘ that I should 
see Monsieur le comte. ’ 


GobsecJc. 


67 


u * Then you would be more favored than I am,’ 
she said, interrupting me* 4 Monsieur de Restaud 
will see no one; he will scarcely allow the doctor to 
visit him, and he rejects all attentions, even mine. 
Such men are so fanciful! they are like children; they 
don’t know what they want.’ 

“ 4 Perhaps, like children, they know exactly what 
they want.’ 

44 The countess colored. I was almost sorry for 
having made that speech, so worthy of Gobseck. 

“ 4 But,* I continued, to change the conversation, 
4 Monsieur de Restaud cannot be always alone, I 
suppose.’ 

“ 4 His eldest son is with him,’ she said. 

“I looked at her; but this time she did not color; 
she seemed to have strengthened her resolution not to 
give way. 

44 4 Let me say, madame, that my request is not 
indiscreet,’ I resumed; 4 it is founded on important 
interests — ’ I bit my lips as I said the words, feeling, 
too late, that I had made a false move. The countess 
instantly took advantage of my heedlessness. 

4 4 4 My interests are not apart from those of my 
husband,’ she said. 4 Nothing hinders you from 
addressing yourself to me.’ 

4 4 4 The affair which brings me here concerns Mon- 
sieur le comte only,’ I replied firmly. 


68 


Gob seek. 


‘“I will have him informed of your wish to see 
him.’ 

“ The polite tone and air she assumed, as she said 
those words, did not deceive me. I saw plainly she 
would never let me reach her husband. I talked for 
a time on indifferent matters, in order to observe her; 
but, like all women who have formed a plan, she could 
dissimulate with that rare perfection which, in per- 
sons of your sex, Madame la vicomtesse, is, in the 
highest degree, treacherous. Dare I say it? I began 
to apprehend the worst of her, — even crime. This 
impression came from a glimpse into the future, 
revealed by her gestures, her glance, her maimer, and 
even by the intonations of her voice. I left her — 

“And now, madame,” continued Derville, after a 
slight pause, “I must give you a narrative of the 
scenes which ended this affair, adding certain circum- 
stances which time has revealed to me, and certain 
details which G-obseck’s perspicacity, or my own, 
have enabled me to divine — 

“As soon as the Comte de Restaud appeared to 
plunge into the pleasures of a gay life, and seemed 
to squander his money, scenes took place between 
husband and wife the secret of which was never 
divulged, although the count found reason to judge 
more unfavorably than ever of his wife’s character. 
He fell ill from the effects of this shock, and took to 


Gobseck. 


69 


liis bed ; it was then that his aversion to the countess 
and her two younger children showed itself. He for- 
bade their entrance into his room, and when they 
attempted to elude this order, their disobedience 
brought on such dangerous excitement in Monsieur de 
Restaud that the doctor conjured the countess not to 
infringe her husband’s orders. Madame de Restaud, 
who by this time had seen the landed estates, the 
family property, and even the house in which she 
lived made over, successively, to Gobseck, no doubt 
understood, in a measure, her husband’s real inten- 
tions. Monsieur de Trailles, then rather hotly pur- 
sued by creditors, was travelling in England. He 
alone could have made her fully understand the secret 
precautions which Gobseck had suggested to the count 
against her. It is said that she resisted affixing her 
signature, as our laws require, to the sale of lands; 
nevertheless, the count obtained it in every instance. 
She appears to have thought that the count was cap- 
italizing his fortune, and placing the total in the 
hands of some notary, or, possibly, in the Bank. 
According to her ideas, Monsieur de Restaud must 
possess a deed of some kind to enable her eldest son 
to recover a part at least of the landed estate, and 
this deed was probably now in the count’s own 
custody. She therefore determined to establish a 
close watch upon her husband’s room. Outside of 


70 


Gobseck. 


that room she reigned despotically over the house- 
hold, which she now subjected to the closest watch- 
ing. She herself remained all day seated in the 
salon adjoining her husband’s bedroom, where she 
could hear his every word and even his movements. 
At night, she had a bed made up in the same room ; 
but for most of the time she slept little. The 
doctor was entirely in her interests. Such devo- 
tion seemed admirable. She knew, with the shrewd- 
ness natural to treacherous minds, how to explain the 
repugnance Monsieur de Restaud manifested for her; 
and she played grief so perfectly that her conduct 
attained to a sort of celebrity. A few prudes were 
heard to admit that she redeemed her faults by her 
present behavior. She herself had constantly before 
her eyes the poverty that awaited her at the count’s 
death should she lose her presence of mind even for 
a moment. Consequently, repulsed as she was from 
the bed of pain on which her husband lay, she drew 
a magic ring around it. Far from him, but near 
to him, deprived of her functions, but all powerful, a 
devoted wife apparently, she sat there, watching for 
death and fortune, as that insect of the fields, in the 
depths of the spiral mound he has laboriously thrown 
up, hearkens to every grain of dust that falls while 
awaiting his inevitable prey. The severest censors 
could not deny that the countess was carrying the 


G-olseclc, 


71 


sentiment of motherhood to an extreme. The death 
of her father had been, people said, a lesson to her. 
Adoring her children, she had given them the best 
and most brilliant of educations ; they were too young 
to understand the immoralities of her life; she had 
been able to attain her end, and make herself adored 
by them. I admit that I cannot entirely avoid a 
sentiment of admiration for this woman, and a feel- 
ing of compassion about which Gobseck never ceased 
to joke me. At this period, the countess, who had 
recognized, at last, the baseness of Maxime, was 
expiating, in tears of blood, the faults of her past 
life. I am sure of this. However odious were the 
measures which she took to obtain her husband’s for- 
tune, they were dictated by maternal affection, and 
the desire to repair the wrong she had done to her 
younger children. Each time that Ernest left his 
father’s room, she subjected him to close inquiry on 
all the count had said and done. The boy lent him- 
self willingly to his mother’s wishes, which he attrib- 
uted to tender feelings, and he often forestalled her 
questions. My visit was a flash of light to the coun- 
tess, who believed she saw in me the agent of the 
count’s vengeance; and she instantly determined not 
to let me see the dying man. I myself, under a 
strong presentiment of coming evil, was keenly desir- 
ous to obtain an interview with Monsieur de Eestaud, 


72 


GrobsecJc. 


for I was not without anxiety about the fate of the 
counter-deed ; if it fell into the hands of the countess, 
she might raise money on it, and the result would be 
interminable law-suits ' between herself and Gobseck. 
I knew the latter well enough to be certain he would 
never restore the property to the countess, and there 
were many elements of litigation in the construction 
of these deeds, the carrying out of which could only 
be done by me. Anxious to prevent misfortunes be- 
fore it was too late, I determined to see the countess 
a second time. 

“ I have remarked, madame,” said Derville to 
Madame de Grandlieu, in a confidential tone, “ that 
certain moral phenomena exist to which we do not 
pay sufficient attention in social life. Being by nature 
an observer, I have carried into the various affairs of 
self-interest which come into my practice, and in 
which passions play so vehement a part, a spirit of 
involuntary analysis. Now, I have always noticed, 
with ever-recurring surprise, that the secret ideas and 
intentions of two adversaries are reciprocally divined. 
We sometimes find, in two enemies, the same lucidity 
of reasoning, the same power of intellectual sight as 
there is between two lovers who can read each other’s 
souls. So, when the countess and I were once more 
in presence of each other, I suddenly understood the 
cause of her antipathy to me, although she disguised 


GobsecJc. 


73 


her feelings under the most gracious politeness and 
amenity. I was the confidant of her husband’s affairs, 
and it was impossible that any woman could avoid 
hating a man before whom she was forced to blush. 
On her part, she guessed that, although I was the 
man to whom her husband gave his confidence, he 
had not yet given the charge of his property into my 
hands. Our conversation (which I will spare you) 
remains in my memory as one of the most perilous 
struggles in which I have ever been engaged. The 
countess, gifted by nature with the qualities neces- 
sary for the exercise of irresistible seduction, became, 
in turn, supple, haughty, caressing, confidential; she 
even went so far as to attempt to rouse my curiosity, 
and even to excite a sentiment of love in order to 
master me; but she failed. When I took leave of her 
I detected, in her eyes, an expression of hate and fury 
which made me tremble. We parted enemies. She 
would fain have annihilated me, while I felt pity for 
her, — a feeling which, to certain natures, is the 
deepest of all insults. That feeling showed itself 
plainly in the last remarks I made to her. I left, as 
I believe, an awful terror in her soul, by assuring her 
that in whatever way she acted she would inevitably 
be ruined. 

“ 1 If I could only see Monsieur le comte,’ I said to 
her, 4 the future of your children — ’ 


74 


Gobsecle. 


“ * I should be at your mercy,’ she said, interrupt- 
ing me with a gesture of disgust. 

“ The questions between us being declared in so 
frank and positive a manner, I determined to go for- 
ward in my own way, and save that family from the 
ruin that awaited it. Resolving to commit even legal 
irregularities, if they were necessary to attain my 
ends, I made the following preparations: First, I 
sued the Comte de Restaud for a sum fictitiously due 
to Gobseck, and obtained a judgment against him. 
The countess concealed this proceeding; but it gave 
me the legal right to affix seals to the count’s room 
on his death, which was, of course, my object. Next, 
I bribed -one of the servants of the house, and made 
him promise to notify me the moment that his master 
appeared to be dying, were it even in the middle of 
the night; I did this, in order that I might reach the 
house suddenly, frighten the countess by threatening 
to affix the seals instantly, and so get possession of 
the counter-deed. I heard, afterwards, that this 
woman was studying the Code while she listened to 
the moans of her dying husband. What frightful 
pictures might be made of the souls of those who sur- 
round some death-beds, if we could only paint ideas! 
And money is always the mover of the intrigues there 
elaborated, the plans there formed, the plots there 
laid! Let us now turn from these details, irksome, 


GobsecJc. 


75 


indeed, though they may have enabled you to see the 
wretchedness of this woman, that of her husband, and 
the secrets of other homes under like circumstances'. 
For the last two months, the Comte de Restaud, 
resigned to die, lay alone on his bed, in his own 
chamber. A mortal disease was slowly sapping both 
mind and body. A victim to those sick fancies the 
caprices of which appear inexplicable, he objected to 
the cleaning of his room, refused all personal cares, 
and even insisted that no one should make his bed. 
A sort of apathy took possession of him ; the furni- 
ture was in disorder, dust and cobwebs lay thick on 
the delicate ornaments. Formerly choice and luxuri- 
ous in his tastes, he now seemed to take pleasure 
in the melancholy spectacle of his room, where the 
chimney-piece and chairs and tables were encum- 
bered with articles required by illness,— phials, empty 
or full, and nearly all dirty, soiled linen, broken 
plates; a warming-pan was before the fire, and a tub, 
still full of some mineral water. The sentiment of 
destruction was expressed in every detail of this 
miserable chaos. Death loomed up in things before 
it invaded the person. The count had a horror of 
daylight; the outer blinds of the windows were closed, 
and this enforced darkness added to the gloom of the 
melancholy place. The sick man was shrunken, but 
his eyes, in which life appeared to have taken refuge, 


76 


GobsecJc. 


were still brilliant. The livid whiteness of his face 
had something horrible about it, increased by the 
extraordinary length of his hair, which he refused to 
have cut, so that it now hung in long, straight meshes 
beside his face. He bore some resemblance to the 
fanatical hermits of a desert. Grief had extinguished 
all other human feelings in this man, who was bafely 
fifty years of age, and whom Paris had once known 
so brilliant and so happy. One morning, about the 
beginning of December, in the year 1824, he looked 
at his son Ernest, who was sitting at the foot of his 
bed, watching him sadly : — 

“ 4 Are you in pain, papa ? ’ asked the lad. 

“ 4 No,’ he said, with a frightful smile; 4 it is all 
here and there,’ — he pointed first to his head, and 
then pressed his fleshless fingers on his heart, with a 
gesture that made Ernest weep. 

4 4 4 Why does not Monsieur Derville come to me? ’ 
he said to his valet, whom he thought attached to him, 
but who was really in the interests of the countess. 

4 Maurice, * cried the dying man, suddenly sitting up, 
and seeming to recover his presence of mind, ‘ I 
have sent you seven or eight times to my lawyer, 
within the last fortnight; why does n’t he come? Do 
you think some one is tricking me? Go and get him 
instantly, and bring him back with you. If you don’t 
execute my orders, I ’ll get up myself and go — ’ 


GrobsecJc. 


77 


44 4 Madame/ said the valet, going into the salon, 
‘ you have heard Monsieur le comte ; what am I to 
do? * 

44 4 Pretend to go to that lawyer, and then come 
back and say to Monsieur le comte that his man of 
business has gone a hundred miles into the country, 
to try an important case. You can add that he 
is expected back the last of the week. Sick men 
always deceive themselves about their state/ she 
thought; 4 he will wait for the lawyer’s return.’ 

44 The doctor had that morning told her that the 
count could scarcely survive the day. When, two 
hours later, the valet brought back this discouraging 
message, the count was greatly agitated. 

4 4 4 My God! my God! ’ he repeated many times. 
4 1 have no hope but in thee ! ’ 

44 He looked at his son for a long while, and said to 
him, at last, in a feeble voice: — 

44 4 Ernest, my child, you are very young, but you 
have a good heart, and you will surely comprehend the 
sacredness of a promise made to a dying man, — to a 
father. Do you feel capable of keeping a secret? 
of burying it in your own breast, so that even your 
mother shall not suspect it? My son, there is no one 
but you in this house whom I can trust. You will not 
betray my confidence ? ’ 

44 4 No, father.’ 


78 


GobsecJc. 


* 4 4 Then, Ernest, I shall give you, presently, a 
sealed package which belongs to Monsieur Derville; 
you must keep it in such a way that no one can know 
you have it; you must then manage to leave the house, 
and throw the package into the post-office box at the 
end of the street.’ 

“ 4 Yes, father.’ 

44 4 Can I rely upon you? ’ 

44 4 Yes, father.’ 

4 4 4 Then kiss me. You make my death less bitter, 
dear child. In six or seven years you will understand 
the importance of this secret, — you will then be 
rewarded for your faithfulness and dexterity, and you 
will also know, my son, how much I have loved you. 
Leave me now, for a moment, and watch that no one 
enters this room.’ 

44 Ernest went out, and found his mother standing 
in the salon. 

4 4 4 Ernest,’ she said, 4 come here.’ 

44 She sat down, and held her son between her knees, 
pressing him to her heart, and kissing him. 

44 4 Ernest,’ she said, 4 your father has been talking 
to you.’ 

4 4 4 Yes, mamma.’ 

4 4 4 What did he say to you? ’ 

44 4 I cannot repeat it, mamma.’ 

44 4 Oh! my dear child,’ cried the countess, kissing 


Gobseck. 


79 


him with enthusiasm, ‘ how much pleasure your dis- 
cretion gives me. Tell the truth, and always be faith- 
ful to your word: those are' two principles you must 
never forget/ 

“ ‘ Oh! how noble you are, mamma; you were never 
false, you ! — of that I am sure. ’ 

“ 1 Sometimes, Ernest, I have been false. Yes, T 
have broken my word under circumstances before 
which even laws must yield. Listen, my Ernest, you 
are now old enough and sensible enough to see that 
your father repulses me, and rejects my care ; this is 
not natural, for you know, my son, how I love him.’ 

u ‘ Yes, mamma.’ 

“ ‘ My poor child,’ continued the countess, weeping, 
1 this misfortune is the result of treacherous insinua- 
tions. Wicked people have sought to separate me 
from your father, in order to satisfy their own 
cupidity. They want to deprive us of our property 
and keep it themselves. If your father were well the 
separation now between us would cease; he would 
listen to me; you knowhow good and loving he is; 
he would recognize his error. But, as it is, his mind 
is weakened, the prejudice he has taken against me 
has become a fixed idea, a species of mania, — the 
effect of his disease. The preference your father 
shows for you is another proof of the derangement of 
his faculties. You never noticed before his illness, 


80 


G-obsecJc. 


that he cared less for Pauline and Georges than for 
you. It is a mere caprice on his part. The tender- 
ness he now feels for you may suggest to him to give 
you orders to execute. If you do not wish to ruin 
your family, my dear boy, if you would not see your 
mother begging her bread like a pauper, you must tell 
her everything — 9 

“ ‘ Ah! ah! ’ cried the count, who, having opened 
the door, appeared to them suddenly, half naked, 
already as dry and fleshless as a skeleton. That hol- 
low cry produced a terrible effect upon the countess, 
who remained motionless, rigid, and half stupefied. 
Her husband was so gaunt and pale, he looked as if 
issuing from a grave. 

“ ‘ You have steeped my life in misery, and now 
you seek to embitter my death, to pervert the mind of 
my son, and make him a vicious man! ’ cried the 
count, in a hoarse voice. 

“ The countess flung herself at the feet of the dying 
man, whom these last emotions of his waning life 
made almost hideous, and burst into a torrent of 
tears. 

“ ‘ Mercy! mercy! ’ she cried. 

“ ‘ Have you had pity for me?’ he asked. ‘I 
allowed you to squander your own fortune; would 
you now squander mine, and ruin my son?’ 

“ ‘Ah ! yes, no pity for me! yes, be inflexible! but 


GobsecJc. 


81 


the children ! Condemn your widow to a convent, and 
I will obey you ; I will expiate my faults by doing all 
you order ; but let the children prosper ! the children ! 
the children ! ’ 

“ ‘ I have but one child,’ replied the count, stretch- 
ing his fleshless arm, with a despairing gesture, to his 
son. 

“ ‘ Pardon! I repent! I repent! ’ cried the coun- 
tess,' clasping the cold, damp feet of her husband. 
Sobs hindered her from speaking; only vague, inco- 
herent words could force their way from her burning 
throat. 

“ ‘ After what you have just said to Ernest do you 
dare to talk of repentance? ’ said the dying man, free- 
ing his feet, and throwing over the countess in doing 
so. ‘ You shock me,’ he added, with an indifference 
in which there was something awful. ‘ You were a 
bad daughter, you have been a bad wife, you will be 
a bad mother.’ 

“ The unhappy woman fainted as she lay there. 
The dying man returned to his bed, lay down, and 
lost consciousness soon after. The priests came to 
administer the sacraments. He died at midnight, the 
scene of the morning having exhausted his remaining 
strength. I reached the house, together with papa 
Gobseck, half an hour later. Thanks to the excite- 
ment that prevailed, we entered the little salon, next 

6 


82 


Gobseck. 


to the death-chamber, unnoticed. There we found the 
three children in tears, between two priests, who were 
to pass the night with the body. Ernest came to me, 
and said that his mother wished to be alone, in the 
count’s chamber. 

“ ‘ Do not enter,’ he said, with an exquisite expres- 
sion of tone and gesture. ‘ She is praying.’ 

“Gobseck laughed, that silent laugh peculiar to 
him. I was far too moved by the feeling that shone 
on the boy’s young face to share the old man’s irony. 
When Ernest saw us going to the door, he ran to it, 
and called out: — 

“ * Mamma ! here are some black men looking for 
you.’ 

“ Gobseck lifted the child as if he were a feather, 
and opened the door. What a sight now met our 
eyes! Frightful disorder reigned in the room. Di- 
shevelled by despair, her eyes flashing, the countess 
stood erect, speechless, in the midst of clothes, papers, 
articles of all kinds. Horrible confusion in the 
presence of death! Hardly had the count expired, 
before his wife had forced the drawers and the desk. 
Round her, on the carpet, lay fragments of all kinds, 
torn papers, portfolios broken open, — all bearing the 
marks of her daring hands. If, at first, her search had 
been in vain, something in her attitude and the sort 
of agitation that possessed her made me think she 


G-obseck. 


83 


had ended by discovering the mysterious papers. I 
turned my eyes to the bed, and, with the instinct that 
practice in our profession gives me, I divined what 
had happened The count’s body was rolled to the 
wall, and lay half across the bed, the nose to the 
mattress, disdainfully tossed aside, like the envelopes 
lying on the floor. His inflexible, stiffening limbs 
gave him an appearance grotesquely horrible. The 
dying man had no doubt hidden the counter-deed 
under his pillow, in order to preserve it from danger, 
while he lived. The countess, baffled in her search, 
must have divined her husband’s thought at last; in 
fact, it seemed revealed by the convulsive form of his 
hooked fingers. The pillow was flung upon the ground ; 
the imprint of the wife’s foot was still upon it; beside 
it, and just before her, where she stood, I saw an 
envelope with many seals, bearing the count’s arms. 
This I picked hastily up, and read a direction, showing 
that the contents of that envelope had been intended 
for me. I knew what they were! I looked fixedly at 
the countess, with the stern intelligence of a judge who 
examines a guilty person. • A fire on the hearth was 
licking up the remains of the papers. When she saw 
us enter, the countess had doubtless flung the deed into 
it, believing (perhaps from its first formal words) that 
she was destroying a will that deprived her younger 
children of their property, i A tortured conscience, 


84 


G-obseck. 


and the involuntary fear inspired by the commission 
of a crime, had taken from her all power of reflection. 
Finding herself caught almost in the act, she may 
have fancied she already felt the branding iron of the 
galleys. The woman stood there, panting, as she 
awaited our first words, and looking at us with haggard 
eyes. 

“ ‘ Ah! madame,’ I said, taking from the hearth 
a fragment which the fire had not wholly consumed, 
‘you have ruined your younger children! These 
papers secured their property to them. ’ 

u Her mouth stirred, as if she were about to have a 
paralytic fit. 

“ ‘ He ! he ! ’ cried Gobseck, whose exclamation had 
the effect produced by the pushing of a brass candle- 
stick on a bit of marble. After a slight pause, he 
said to me, calmly : > — 

“ ‘ Do you want to make Madame la comtesse be- 
lieve that I am not the sole and legitimate possessor of 
the property sold to me by Monsieur le comte ? This 
house belongs to me henceforth.’ 

u The blow of a club applied suddenly to my head 
could not have caused me greater pain or more sur- 
prise. The countess observed the puzzled glance 
which I cast on the old man. 

“ ‘ Monsieur! monsieur! ’ she said to him; but she 
could find no other words than those. 


GrobsecJc. 


85 


“ ‘ Have you a deed of trust? ’ I said to him. 

“ ‘ Possibly.’ 

“ ‘ Do you intend to take advantage of the crime 
which madame has committed ? ’ 

“ * Precisely.’ 

“ I left the house, leaving the countess sitting by 
her husband’s bedside, weeping hot tears. Gobseck 
followed me. When we reached the street I turned 
away from him ; but he came to me, and gave me one 
of those piercing looks with which he sounded hearts, 
and said, with his fluty voice, in its sharpest tone: — 

“ ‘ Do you pretend to judge me? ’ 

“After that I saw but little of him. He let the 
count’s house in Paris, and spent the summers on the 
Restaud estates in the country, where he played 
the lord, constructed farms, repaired mills, built 
roads, and planted trees. I met him one day in the 
Tuileries gardens. 

“ ‘ The countess is living an heroic life,’ I said. 
‘ She devotes herself wholly to the education of her 
children, whom she is bringing up admirably. The 
eldest is a fine fellow.’ 

“ ‘ Possibly.’ 

“‘ But,’ I said, * don’t you think you ought to help 
Ernest?’ 

“ ‘ Help Ernest!’ he cried. ‘No! Misfortune is 
our greatest teacher. Misfortune will teach him the 


86 


Crobseck . 


value of money, of men, and of women, too. Let him 
navigate the Parisian sea! When he has learned to 
be a good pilot it will be soon enough to give him a 
ship. ’ 

“I left him without further explanation of the 
meaning of those words. Though Monsieur de 
Restaud, to whom his mother has no doubt imparted 
her own repugnance to me, is far, indeed, from tak- 
ing me for his counsel, I went, two weeks ago, to 
Gobseck, and told him of Ernest’s love for Made- 
moiselle Camille, and urged him to make ready to 
accomplish his trust, inasmuch as the young count 
has almost reached his majority. I found the old 
man had been confined for a long time to his bed, 
suffering from a disease which was about to carry him 
off. He declined to answer until he was able to get up 
and attend to business, — unwilling, no doubt, to give 
up a penny while the breath of life was in him; his 
delay could have no other motive. Finding him very 
much worse than he thought himself, I stayed with 
him for some time, and was thus able to observe the 
progress of a passion which age had converted into a 
species of mania. In order to have no one in the 
house he occupied, he had become the sole tenant of 
it, leaving all the other apartments unoccupied. Noth- 
ing was changed in the room in which he lived. The 
furniture, which I had known so well for sixteen years, 


Gobseck. 


87 


seemed to have been kept under glass, so exactly the 
same was it. His old and faithful portress, married 
to an old soldier who kept the lodge while she went 
up to do her master’s work, was still his housekeeper, 
and was now fulfilling the functions of a nurse. Not- 
withstanding his weak condition, Gobseck still re- 
ceived his clients and his revenues; and he had so 
carefully simplified his business that a few messages 
sent by the old soldier were sufficient to regulate his 
external affairs. At the time of the treaty by which 
France recognized the republic of Hayti, the knowl- 
edge possessed by Gobseck of the former fortunes of 
San Domingo and the colonists, the assigns of whom 
were claiming indemnity, caused him to be appointed 
member of the commission instituted to determine these 
rights, and adjust the payments due from the Haytian 
government. Gobseck’ s genius led him to establish 
an agency for discounting the claims of the colonists 
and their heirs and assigns under the names of 
Werbrust and Gigonnet, with whom he shared all 
profits without advancing any money, his knowledge 
of these matters constituting his share in the ^enter- 
prise. This agency was like a distillery, which threw 
out the claims of ignorant persons, distrustful per- 
sons, or those whose rights could be contested. As 
member of the commission, Gobseck negotiated with 
the large proprietors, who, either to get their claims 


88 


CrobsecJc. 


valued at a high figure, or to have them speedily 
admitted, offered him gifts in proportion to the sums 
involved. 

These presents constituted a sort of discount 
on the sums he could not lay hands on himself; 
moreover, this agency gave him, at a low price, the 
claims of petty owners, or timid owners, who pre- 
ferred an immediate payment, small as the sum might 
be, to the chance of uncertain payments from the 
republic. Gobseck was therefore the insatiable boa- 
constrictor of this great affair. Every morning he 
received his tribute, and looked it over as the minister 
of a pacha might have done before deciding to sign a 
pardon. Gobseck topk all things, — from the game- 
bag of some poor devil, and the pound of candles of 
a timorous soul, to the plate of the rich, and the gold 
snuff-boxes of speculators. No one knew what be- 
came of these presents made to the old usurer. All 
things went in to him, nothing came out : — 

“ ‘ On the word of an honest woman,’ the portress, 
an old acquantance of mine, said to me, ‘ I believe he 
swallows ’em! But that don’t make him fat, for he ’s 
as lank as the pendulum of my clock.’ 

“ Last Monday Gobseck sent the old soldier to 
fetch me. 

“ ‘ Make haste, Monsieur Derville,’ said the man as 
he entered my office; ‘ the master is going to give in 


GobsecJc. 


89 


his last account. He’s as yellow as a lemon; and 
he ’s very impatient to see you. Death has got him; 
the last rattle growls in his throat. ’ 

“ When I entered the chamber of the dying man, I 
found him on his knees before the fireplace, where, 
though there was no fire, an enormous heap of ashes 
lay. Gobseck had crawled to it from his bed, but 
strength to return had failed him, also the voice with 
which to call for assistance. 

“ ‘ My old friend,’ I said, lifting him, and helping 
him to regain his bed, ‘ you -will take cold; why don’t 



yo£fik»ve a fire? ’ 


’m nt)t cold,’ he answered. ‘ No fire! no fire! 
— I’m going I don’t know where, boy,’ he went on, 
giving me his last blank, chilling look; ‘.but it is 
away from here! I’ve got the carjohology ,’ using a 
term which made me see how clear and precise his 
intellect still was. ‘ I thought my room was full of 
living gold, and I got up to get some. To whom will 
mine go? I won’t let the government get it. I’ve 
made a will ; find it, Grotius. The belle Hollandaise 
had a daughter that I saw somewhere; I don’t know 
where — in the rue Vivienne, one evening. I think 
they call her “La Torpille,” — she ’s pretty; find her, 
Grotius. You are the executor of my will; take what 
you want; eat it; there ’s pates de foie gras, bags of 
coffee, 3ugar, gold spoons. Give the Odiot service to 


90 


GobsecJc. 


your wife. But who ’s to have the diamonds ? Do 
you care for them, boy? There ’s tobacco; sell it in 
Hamburg; it will bring half as much again. I’ve got 
everything ! and I must leave it all ! Come, come, 
papa Gobseck,’ he said to himself, ‘ no weakness! be 
yourself. ’ 

“ He sat up in bed, his face clearly defined against 
the pillow like a piece of bronze; he stretched his 
withered arm and bony hand upon the coverlet, which 
he grasped as if to hold himself from going. He 
looked at his hearth, cold as his own metallic eye; and 
he died with his mind clear, presenting to his portress, 
the old soldier, and me, an image of those old Romans 
standing behind the Consuls, such as Lethiere has 
depicted them in his painting of the ‘ Death of the 
Sons of Brutus.’ 

“‘Hasn’t he grit, that old Lascar!’ said the 
soldier, in barrack language. 

“I still seemed to hear the fantastic enumeration 
that the dying man had made of his possessions, and 
my glance, which had followed his, again rested on 
that heap of ashes, the immense size of which sud- 
denly struck me. I took the tongs, and when I thrust 
them into the mound, they struck upon a hoard of gold 
and silver, — no doubt the fruit of his last receipts, 
which his weakness had prevented him from hiding 
elsewhere. 


Gobseck. 


91 


44 4 Go for the justice-of-peace,’ I said, ‘ and let the 
seals be put on at once/ 

44 Moved by Gobseck’s last words, and by some- 
thing the portress had told me, I took the keys of the 
other apartments, in order to inspect them. In the 
first room I entered I found the explanation of words 
I had supposed delirious. Before my eyes were the 
effects of an avarice in which nought remained but 
that illogical instinct of hoarding which we see in 
provincial misers. In the room adjoining that where 
Gobseck lay were mouldy patties, a mass of eatables 
of all kinds, shell-fish, and other fish, now rotten, the 
various stenches of which almost asphyxiated me. 
Maggots and insects swarmed there. These presents, 
recently made, were lying among boxes of all shapes, 
chests of tea, bags of coffee. On the fireplace, in a 
silver soup tureen, were bills of lading of merchan- 
dise consigned to him. at Havre: bales of cotton, hogs- 
heads of sugar, barrels of rum, coffees, indigos, tobacco, 
— an absolute bazaar of colonial products ! The 
room was crowded with articles of furniture, silver- 
ware, lamps, pictures, vases, books, fine engravings, 
without frames or rolled up, and curiosities of various 
descriptions. Possibly this enormous mass of prop- 
erty of all kinds did not come wholly as gifts ; part of 
it may have been taken in pledge for debts unpaid. 
I saw jewel-cases stamped with armorial bearings, 


92 


Gobseek. 


sets of the finest damask, valuable weapons, but all 
without names. Opening a book, which seemed to me 
rather out of place, I found in it a number of thousand- 
franc notes. I resolved, therefore, to examine the 
most insignificant articles, — to search the floors, the 
ceilings, the cornices, the walls, and find every frag- 
ment of that gold so passionately loved by the old 
Dutchman, who was worthy, indeed, of Rembrandt’s 
pencil. I have never seen, throughout my legal life, 
such effects of avarice and originality. When I re- 
turned to his own chamber, I found, on his desk, the 
reason of this progressive heaping up of riches. 
Under a paper-weight was a correspondence between 
Gobseek and the merchants to whom, no doubt, he 
habitually sold his presents. Now yrhether it was 
that these dealers were the victims of his astuteness, 
or that Gobseek wanted too high a price for his pro- 
visions and manufactured articles, it was evident that 
each negotiation was suspended. He had not sold 
the comestibles to Chevet because Chevet would only 
take them at a reduction of thirty per cent. Gobseek 
haggled for a few extra francs, and, meantime, the 
goods became damaged. As for the silver, he refused 
to pay the costs of transportation ; neither would he 
make good the wastage on his coffees. In short, every 
article had given rise to squabbles which revealed in 
Gobseek the first symptoms of that childishness, that 


GobsecJc. 


93 


incomprehensible obstinacy which old men fall into 
whenever a strong passion survives the vigor of their 
minds. I said to myself, as he had said : — 

“ ‘To whom will all this wealth go? ’ 

“Thinking over the singular information he had 
given me about his only heiress, I saw that I should 
be compelled to ransack every questionable house in 
Paris, in order to cast this enormous fortune at the 
feet of a bad woman. But — what is of far more 
importance to us — let me now tell you, that, accord- 
ing to deeds drawn up in due form, Comte Ernest de 
Restaud will, in a few days, come into possession of a 
fortune which will enable him to marry Mademoiselle 
Camille, and also to give a sufficient dowry to his 
mother, and to portion his brother and sister 
suitably.” 

“Well, dear Monsieur Derville, we will think about 
it,” replied Madame de G-randlieu. “Monsieur Ernest 
ought to be very rich to make a family like ours 
accept his mother. Remember that my son will one 
day be Due de Grandlieu, and will unite the fortunes 
of the two Grandlieu houses. I wish him to have a 
brother-in-law to his taste.” 

“But,” said the Comte de Born, “Restaud bears 
gules, a barrel argent, with four inescutcheons or, 
each charged with a cross sable. It is a very old 
blazon.” 


94 


GobsecTc. 


“ True/’ said the viscountess. “Besides, Camille 
need never see her mother-in-law, who turned the Res 
tuta — the motto of that blazon, brother — to a lie.” 

“ Madame de Beauseant received Madame de 
Restaud,” said the old uncle. 

“Yes, but only at her routs,” replied the viscountess. 


THE 


SECRETS OF THE PRINCESSE DE CADIGNAN. 
















* - 










. 









































































. 











































































THE SECRETS 

OP THE 

PRINCESSE DE CADIGNAN. 


TO THEOPHILE GAUTIER. 


I. 


THE LAST WORD OF TWO GREAT COQUETTES. 

After the disasters of the revolution of July, which 
destroyed so many aristocratic fortunes dependent 
on the court, Madame la Princesse de Cadignan was 
clever enough to attribute to political events the total 
ruin she had caused by her own extravagance. The 
prince left France with the royal family, and never 
returned to it, leaving the princess in Paris, protected 
by the fact of his absence ; for their debts, which the 
sale of all their salable property had not been able to 
extinguish, could only be recovered through him. The 
revenues of the entailed estates had been seized. In 

7 


98 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 

short, the affairs of this great family were in as bad a 
state as those of the elder branch of the Bourbons. 

This woman, so celebrated under her first name 
of Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, very wisely decided 
to live in retirement, and to make herself, if pos- 
sible, forgotten. Paris was then so carried away by 
the whirling current of events that the Duchesse de 
Maufrigneuse, buried in the Princesse de Cadignan, 
a change of name unknown to most of the new actors 
brought upon the stage of society by the revolution of 
July, did really become a stranger in her own city. 

In Paris the title of duke ranks all others, even 
that of prince; though, in heraldic theory, free of all 
sophism, titles signify nothing; there is absolute 
equality among gentlemen. This fine equality was 
formerly maintained by the House of France itself; 
and in our day it is so still, at least, nominally ; wit- 
ness the care with which the kings of France give to 
their sons the simple title of count. It was in virtue 
of this system that Francis I. crushed the splendid 
titles assumed by the pompous Charles the Fifth, by 
signing his answer: “Francis, seigneur de Vanves.” 
Louis XI. did better still by marrying his daughter to 
an untitled gentleman, Pierre de Beaujeu. The feudal 
system was so thoroughly broken up by Louis XIV. that 
the title of duke became, during his reign, the supreme 
honor of the aristocracy, and the most coveted. 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 99 

Nevertheless there are two or three families in 
France in which the principality, richly endowed in 
former times, takes precedence of the duchy. The 
house of Cadignan, which possesses the title of Due 
de Maufrigneuse for its eldest sons, is one of these 
exceptional families. Like the princes of the house 
of Rohan in earlier days, the princes of Cadignan had 
the right to a throne in their own domain ; they could 
have pages and gentlemen in their service. This 
explanation is necessary, as much to escape foolish 
critics who know nothing, as to record the customs of 
a world which, we, are told, is about to disappear, and 
which, evidently, so many persons are assisting to 
push away without knowing what it is. 

The Cadignans bear: or, 'five lozenges sable ap- 
pointed, placed fess-wise, with the word Memini for 
motto, a crown with a cap of maintenance, no sup- 
porters or mantle. In these days the great crowd 
of strangers flocking to Paris, and the almost universal 
ignorance of the science of heraldry, are beginning to 
bring the title of prince into fashion. There are no 
real princes but those possessed of principalities, to 
whom belongs the title of highness. The disdain 
shown by the French nobility for the title of prince, 
and the reasons which caused Louis XIV. to give 
supremacy to the title of duke, have prevented French- 
men from claiming the appellation of “ highness ” for 


100 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 

the few princes who exist in France, those of Napoleon 
excepted. This is why the princes of Cadignan hold 
an inferior position, nominally, to the princes of the 
continent. 

The members of the society called the faubourg 
Saint-Germain protected the princess by a respectful 
silence due to her name, which is one of those that all 
men honor, to her misfortunes, which they ceased to 
discuss, and to her beauty, the only thing she saved 
of her departed opulence. Society, of which she had 
once been the ornament, was thankful to her for hav- 
ing, as it were, taken the veil, and cloistered herself 
in her own home. This act of good taste was for her, 
more than for any other woman, an immense sacrifice. 
Great deeds are always so keenly felt in France that 
the princess gained, by her retreat, as much as she 
had lost in public opinion in the days of her splendor. 

She now saw only one of her old friends, the Mar- 
quise d’Espard, and even to her she never went on 
festive occasions or to parties. The princess and the 
marquise visited each other in the forenoons, with a 
certain amount of secrecy. When the princess went 
to dine with her friend, the marquise closed her doors. 
Madame d’Espard treated the princess charmingly; 
she changed her box at the opera, leaving the first tier 
for a baignoire on the ground-floor, so that Madame 
de Cadignan could come to the theatre unseen, and 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan . 101 

depart incognito. Few women would have been cap- 
able of a delicacy which deprived them of the pleasure 
of bearing in their train a fallen rival, and of publicly 
being called her benefactress. Thus relieved of the 
necessity for costly toilets, the princess could enjoy 
the theatre, whither she went in Madame d’Espard’s 
carriage, which she would never have accepted openly 
in the daytime. No one has ever known Madame 
d’Espard’s reasons for behaving thus to the Princesse 
de Cadignan; but her conduct was admirable, and for 
a long time included a number of little acts which, 
viewed singly, seem mere trifles, but taken in the 
mass become gigantic. 

In 1832, three years had thrown a mantle of snow 
over the follies and adventures of the Duchesse de 
Maufrigneuse, and had whitened them so thoroughly 
that it now required a serious effort of memory to‘ 
recall them. Of the queen once adored by so many 
courtiers, and whose follies might have given a theme 
to a variety of novels, there remained a woman still 
adorably beautiful, thirty-six years of age, but quite 
justified in calling herself thirty, although she was 
the mother of Due Georges de Maufrigneuse, a young 
man of eighteen, handsome as Antinous, poor as Job, 
who was expected to obtain great successes, and for 
whom his mother desired, above all things, to find a 
rich wife. Perhaps this hope was the secret of the 


102 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 

intimacy she still kept up with the marquise, in whose 
salon, which was one of the first in Paris, she might 
eventually be able to choose among many heiresses for 
Georges’ wife. The princess saw five years between 
the present moment and the period of her son’s mar- 
riage, — five solitary and desolate years; for, in order 
to obtain such a marriage for her son, she knew that 
her own conduct must be marked in the corner with 
discretion. 

The princess lived in the rue de Miromesnil, in a 
small house, of which she occupied the ground-floor 
at a moderate rent. There she made the most of the 
relics of her past magnificence. The elegance of the 
great lady was still redolent about her. She was still 
surrounded by beautiful things which recalled her 
former existence. On her chimney-piece was a fine 
miniature portrait of Charles X., by Madame Mirbel, 
beneath which were engraved the words, “Given by 
the King ; ” and, as a pendant, the portrait of 
Madame, who was always her kind friend. On a 
table lay an album of costliest price, such as none of 
the bourgeoises who now lord it in our industrial and 
fault-finding society would have dared to exhibit. 
This album contained portraits, about thirty in num- 
ber, of her intimate friends, whom the world, first 
and last, had given her as lovers. The number was a 
calumny ; but had rumor said ten, it might have been, 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 103 

as her friend Madame d’Espard remarked, good, 
sound gossip. The portraits of Maxime de Trailles, 
de Marsay, Rastignac, the Marquis d’Esgrignon, 
General Montriveau, the Marquis de Ronquerolles 
and d’Ajuda-Pinto, Prince Galathionne, the young 
Dues de Grandlieu and de Rhetore, and the handsome 
Lucien de Rubempre, had all been treated with the 
utmost coquetry of brush and pencil by celebrated 
artists. As the princess now received only two or 
three of these personages, she called the book, jok- 
ingly, the collection of her errors. 

Misfortune had made this woman a good mother. 
During the fifteen years of the Restoration she had 
amused herself far too much to think of her son ; but 
on taking refuge in obscurity, this illustrious egoist 
bethought her that the maternal sentiment, developed 
to its extreme, might be an absolution for her past 
follies in the eyes of sensible persons, who pardon 
everything to a good mother. She loved her son all 
the more because she had nothing else to love. 
Georges de Maufrigneuse was, moreover, one of those 
children who flatter the vanities of a mother; and the 
princess had, accordingly, made all sorts of sacrifices 
for him. She hired a stable and coach-house, above 
which he lived in a little entresol with three rooms look- 
ing on the street, and charmingly furnished ; she had 
even borne several privations to keep a saddle-horse, 


104 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 

a cab-horse, and a little groom for his use. For her- 
self, she had only her own maid, and as cook, a 
former kitchen-maid. The duke’s groom had, there- 
fore, rather a hard place. Toby, formerly tiger to the 
late Beaudenord (such was the jesting term applied 
by the gay world to that ruined gentleman), — Toby, 
who at twenty-five years of age was still considered 
only fourteen, was expected to groom the horses, clean 
the cabriolet, or the tilbury, and the harnesses, accom- 
pany his master, take care of the apartments, and be 
in the princess’s antechamber to announce a visitor, 
if, by chance, she happened to receive one. 

When one thinks of what the beautiful Duchesse 
de Maufrigneuse had been under the Restoration, — 
one of the queens of Paris, a dazzling queen, whose 
luxurious existence equalled that of the richest women 
of fashion in London, — there was something touching 
in the sight of her in that humble little abode in the 
rue de Miromesnil, a few steps away from her splen- 
did mansion, which no amount of fortune had enabled 
her to keep, and which the hammer of speculators 
has since demolished. The woman who thought she 
was scarcely well served by thirty servants, who pos- 
sessed the most beautiful reception-rooms in all Paris, 
and the loveliest little private apartments, and who 
made them the scene of such delightful fetes, now 
lived in a small apartment of five rooms, — an ante- 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 105 

chamber, dining-room, salon, one bed-chamber, and a 
dressing-room, with two women-servants only. 

“Ah! she is devoted to her son,” said that clever 
creature, Madame d’Espard, “and devoted without 
ostentation; she is happy. Who would ever have 
believed so frivolous a woman was capable of such 
persistent resolution! Our good archbishop has, con- 
sequently, greatly encouraged her; he is most kind to 
her, and has just induced the old Comtesse de Cinq- 
Cygne to pay her a visit.” 

Let us admit a truth! One must be a queen to 
know how to abdicate, and to descend with dignity 
from a lofty position which is never wholly lost. 
Those only who have an inner consciousness of 
being nothing in themselves, show regrets in falling, 
or struggle, murmuring, to return to a past which can 
never return, — a fact of which they themselves are 
well aware. Compelled to do without the choice 
exotics in the midst of which she had lived, and 
which set off so charmingly her whole being (for it is 
impossible not to compare her to a flower), the prin- 
cess had wisely chosen a ground-floor apartment; there 
she enjoyed a pretty little garden which belonged to 
it, — a garden full of shrubs, and an always verdant 
turf, which brightened her peaceful retreat. She had 
about twelve thousand francs a year ; but that modest 
income was partly made up of an annual stipend sent 


106 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 

her by the old Duchesse de Navarreins, paternal aunt 
of the young duke, and another stipend given by her 
mother, the Duchesse d’Uxelles, who w as living on 
her estate in the country, where she economized as old 
duchesses alone know how to economize ; for Harpagon 
is a mere novice compared to them. The princess still 
retained some of her past relations with the exiled 
royal family; and it was in her house that the marshal 
to whom we owe the conquest of Africa had con- 
ferences, at the time of Madame’ s attempt in La 
Vendee, with the principal leaders of legitimist 
opinion, — so great was the obscurity in which the 
princess lived, and so little distrust did the govern- 
ment feel for her in her present distress. ' 

Beholding the approach of that terrible fortieth 
year, the bankruptcy of love, beyond which there is 
so little for a woman as woman, the princess had flung 
herself into the kingdom of philosophy. She took to 
reading, she who for sixteen years had felt a cordial 
horror for serious things. Literature and politics are 
to-day what piety and devotion once were to her sex, 
— the last refuge of their feminine pretensions. In 
her late social circle it was said that Diane was writ- 
ing a book. Since her transformation from a queen 
and beauty to a woman of intellect, the princess had 
contrived to make a reception in her little house a 
great honor which distinguished the favored person. 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 107 

Sheltered by her supposed occupation, she was able 
to deceive one of her former adorers, de Marsay, the 
most influential personage of the political bourgeoisie 
brought to the fore iu July, 1830. She received him 
sometimes in the evenings, and, occupied his atten- 
tion while the marshal and a few legitimists were 
talking, in a low voice, in her bedroom, about the 
recovery of power, which could be attained only by a 
general co-operation of ideas, — the one element of 
success which all conspirators overlook. It was the 
clever vengeance of a pretty woman, who thus in- 
veigled the prime minister, and made him act as 
screen for a conspiracy against his own government. 

This adventure, worthy of the finest days of the 
Fronde, was the text of a very witty letter, in which 
the princess rendered to Madame an account of the 
negotiations. The Due de Maufrigneuse went to La 
Vendee, and was able to return secretly without being 
compromised, but not without taking part in Madame’s 
perils ; the latter, however, sent him home the moment 
she saw that her cause was lost. Perhaps, had he 
remained, the eager vigilance of the young man might 
have foiled that treachery. However great the faults 
of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse may have seemed in 
the eyes of the bourgeoisie, the behavior of her son 
on this occasion certainly effaced them in the eyes of 
the aristocracy. There was great nobility and gran- 


108 Secrets of the Prince sse de Cadignan . 

deur in thus risking her only son, and the heir of an 
historic name. Some persons are said to intentionally 
cover the faults of their private life by public ser- 
vices, and vice versa ; but the Princesse de Cadignan 
made no such calculation. Possibly those who appar- 
ently so conduct themselves make none. Events count 
for much in such cases. 

On one of the first fine days in the month of May, 
1833, the Marquise d’Espard and the princess were 
turning about — one could hardly call it walking — in 
the single path which wound round the grass-plat in 
the garden, about half past two in the afternoon, just 
as the sun was leaving it. The rays reflected on the 
walls gave a warm atmosphere to the little space, 
which was fragrant with flowers, the gift of the 
marquise. 

u We shall soon lose de Mars ay,” said the marquise; 
“ and with him will disappear your last hope of for- 
tune for your son. Ever since you played him that 
clever trick, he has returned to his affection for you.” 

“My son will never capitulate to the younger 
branch,” returned the princess, “if he has to die of 
hunger, or I have to work with my hands to feed 
him. Besides, Berthe de Cinq-Cygne has no aversion 
to him.” 

“Children don’t bind themselves to their parents’ 
principles,” said Madame d’Espard. 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 109 

“Don’t let us talk about it,” said the princess. 
“If I can’t coax over the Marquise de Cinq-Cygne, I 
shall marry Georges to the daughter of some iron- 
founder, as that little d’Esgrignon did.” 

“ Did you love Victurnien? ” asked the marquise. 

“No,” replied the princess, gravely, “ d’Esgrignon ’s 
simplicity was really only a sort of provincial silli- 
ness, which I perceived rather too late — or, if you 
choose, too soon.”' 

“ And de Marsay? ” 

u De Marsay played with me as if I were a doll. 1 
was so young at the time! We never love men who 
pretend to teach us ; they rub up all our little vani- 
ties. It is three years that I have lived in solitude,” 
she resumed, after a pause, “and this tranquillity has 
nothing painful to me about it. To you alone can I 
dare to say that I feel I am happy. I was surfeited 
with adoration, weary of pleasure, emotional on the sur- 
face of things, but conscious that emotion itself never 
reached my heart. I have found all the men whom I 
have known petty, paltry, superficial; none of them 
ever caused me a surprise ; they had no innocence, no 
grandeur, no delicacy. I wish I could have met with 
one man able to inspire me with respect.” 

“Then are you like me, my dear? ” asked the mar- 
quise; “have you never felt the emotion of love while 
trying to love? ” 


110 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 

“Never,” replied the princess, laying her hand on 
the arm of her friend. 

They- turned and seated themselves on a rustic 
bench beneath a jasmine then coming into flower. 
Each had uttered one of those sayings that are solemn 
to women who have reached their age. 

“Like you,” resumed the princess, “I have re- 
ceived more love than most women; but through all 
my many adventures, I have never found happiness. 
I committed great follies, but they had an object, and 
that object retreated as fast as I approached it. I 
feel to-day in my heart, old as it is, an innocence 
which has never been touched. Yes, under all my 
experience, lies a first love still intact, — just as I 
myself, in spite of all my losses and fatigues, feel 
young and beautiful. We may love and not be happy; 
we may be happy and never love ; but to love and be 
happy, to unite those two immense human experiences, 
is a miracle. That miracle has not taken place for 
me.” 

“Nor for me,” said Madame d’Espard. 

“I own I am pursued in this retreat by a dreadful 
regret: I have amused myself all through life, but I 
have never loved.” 

“ What an incredible secret! ” cried the marquise. 

“Ah! my dear,” replied the princess, “ such secrets 
we can tell to ourselves, you and I, but nobody in 
Paris would believe us.” 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. Ill 

“And,” said the marquise, “if we were not both 
over thirty-six years of age, perhaps we would not 
tell them to each other.” 

“Yes; when women are young they have so many 
stupid conceits,” replied the princess. “We are like 
those poor young men who play with a toothpick to 
pretend they have dined.” 

“Well, at any rate, here we are!” said Madame 
d’Espard, with coquettish grace, and a charming ges- 
ture of well-informed innocence; “and, it seems to 
me, sufficiently alive to think of taking our revenge.” 

“ When you told me, the other day, that Beatrix 
had gone off with Conti, I thought of it all night 
long,” said the princess, after a pause. “I suppose 
there was happiness in sacrificing her position, her 
future, and renouncing society forever.” 

“ She was a little fool,” said Madame d’Espard, 
gravely. “Mademoiselle des Touches was delighted 
to get rid of Conti. Beatrix never perceived how 
that surrender, made by a superior woman who never 
for a moment defended her claims, proved Conti’s 
nothingness.” 

“ Then you think she will be unhappy? ” 

“ She is so now,” replied Madame d’Espard. “ Why 
did she leave her husband? What an acknowledgment 
of weakness ! ” 

“Then you think that Madame de Rochefide was 


112 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 

not influenced by the desire to enjoy a true love in 
peace ? ” asked the princess. 

“No; she was simply imitating Madame de Beau- 
seant and Madame de Langeais, who, be it said, 
between you and me, would have been, in a less vul- 
gar period than ours, the La Valliere, the Diane de 
Poitiers, the Gabrieli e d’Estrees of history. ” 

“Less the king, my dear. Ah! I wish I could 
evoke the shades of those women, and ask them — ” 

“But,” said the marquise, interrupting the princess, 
“why ask the dead ? We know living women who have 
been happy. I have talked on this very subject a 
score of times with Madame de Montcornet since she 
married that little Emile Blondet, who makes her the 
happiest woman in the world ; not an infidelity, not a 
thought that turns aside from her; they are as happy 
as they were the first day. These long attachments, 
like that of your cousin, Madame de Camps, for her 
Octave, have a secret, and that secret you and I don’t 
know, my dear. The world has paid us the extreme 
compliment of thinking we are two rakes worthy of 
the court of the regent; whereas we are, in truth, as 
innocent as a couple of school-girls. ” 

“I should like that sort of innocence,” cried the 
princess, laughing; “ but ours is worse, and it is very 
humiliating. Well, it is a mortification we offer up 
in expiation of our fruitless search; yes, my dear, 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 113 

fruitless, for it is n’t probable we shall find in our 
autumn season the fine flower we missed in the spring 
and summer.” 

“That’s not the question,” resumed the marquise, 
after a meditative pause. “We are Toth still beauti- 
ful enough to inspire love, but we could never convince 
any one of our innocence and virtue.” 

“If it were a lie, how easy to dress it up with com- 
mentaries, and serve it as some delicious fruit to be 
eagerly swallowed ! But how is it possible to get a 
truth believed? Ah! the greatest of men have been 
mistaken there!” added the princess, with one of 
those meaning smiles which the pencil of Leonardo 
da Vinci alone has. rendered. 

“ Fools love well, sometimes,” returned the marquise. 

“But in this case,” said the princess, “fools 
wouldn’t have enough credulity in their nature.” 

“You are right,” said the marquise. “But what 
we ought to look for is neither a fool nor even a man 
of talent. To solve our problem we need a man of 
genius. Genius alone has the faith of childhood, the 
religion of love, and willingly allows us to band its 
eyes. Look at Canalis and the Duchesse de Chaulieu! 
Though we have both encountered men of genius, they 
were either too far removed from us or too busy, and 
we too absorbed, too frivolous.” 

“ Ah! how I wish I might not leave this world with- 


8 


114 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 

out knowing the happiness of true love,” exclaimed 
the princess. 

“ It is nothing to inspire it,” said Madame d’Espard ; 
“the thing is to feel it. I see many women who are 
only the pretext for a passion without being both its 
cause and its effect.” 

“ The last love I inspired was a beautiful and sacred 
thing,” said the princess. “It had a future in it. 
Chance had brought me, for once in a w r ay, the man 
of genius who is due to us, and yet so difficult to 
obtain; there are more pretty women than men of 
genius. But the devil interfered with the affair.” 

“ Tell me about it, my dear; this is all news to me.” 

“ I first noticed this beautiful passion about the 
middle of the winter of 1829. Every Friday, at the 
opera, I obsevved a youqg man, about thirty years of 
age, in the orchestra stalls, who evidently came there 
for me. He was always in the same stall, gazing at 
me with eyes of fire, but, seemingly, saddened by the 
distance between us, perhaps by the hopelessness of 
reaching me.” 

“Poor fellow! When a man loves he becomes 
eminently stupid,” said the marquise. 

“Between every act he would slip into the cor- 
ridor,” continued the princess, smiling at her friend’s 
epigrammatic remark. “ Once or twice, either to see 
me or to make me see him, he looked through the 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 115 

glass sash of the box exactly opposite to mine. If I 
received a visit, I was certain to see him in the cor- 
ridor close to my door, casting a furtive glance upon 
me. He had apparently learned to know the persons 
belonging to my circle ; and he followed them when he 
saw them turning in the direction of my box, in order 
to obtain the benefit of the opening door. I also 
found my mysterious adorer at the Italian opera-house ; 
there he had a stall directly opposite to my box, where 
he could gaze at me in naive ecstasy — oh! it was 
pretty ! On leaving either house I always found 
him planted in the lobby, motionless; he was el- 
bowed and jostled, but he never moved. His eyes 
grew less brilliant if he saw me on the arm of some 
favorite. But not a word, not a letter, no demonstra- 
tion. You must acknowledge that was in good 
taste. Sometimes, on getting home late at night, I 
found him sitting upon one of the stone posts of 
the porte-cochere . This lover of mine had very hand- 
some eyes, a long, thick, fan-shaped beard, with a 
moustache and side-whiskers; nothing could be seen 
of his skin but his white cheek-bones, and a noble 
forehead ; it was truly an antique head. The prince, 
as you know, defended the Tuileries on the river- 
side, during the July days. He returned to Saint- 
Cloud that night, when all was lost, and said to me: 
‘ I came near being killed at four o’clock. I was 


116 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 

aimed at by one of the insurgents, when a young man, 
with a long beard, whom I have often seen at the 
opera, and who was leading the attack, threw up the 
man’s gun, and saved me.’ So my adorer was evi- 
dently a republican! In 1831, after I came to lodge 
in this house, I found him, one day, leaning with his 
back against the wall of it; he seemed pleased with 
my disasters ; possibly he may have thought they drew 
us nearer together. But after the affair of Saint- 
Merri I saw him no more; he was killed there. The 
evening before the funeral of General Lamarque, I 
had gone out on foot with my son, and my republican 
accompanied us, sometimes behind, sometimes in front, 
from the Madeleine to the Passage des Panoramas, 
where I was going.” 

“ Is that all?” asked the marquise. 

“Yes, all,” replied the princess. “Except that on 
the morning Saint-Merri was taken, a gamin came 
here and insisted on seeing me. He gave me a letter, 
written on common paper, signed by my republican.” 

“ Show it to me,” said the marquise. 

“No, my dear. Love was too great and too sacred 
in the heart of that man to let me violate its secrets. 
The letter, short and terrible, still stirs my soul when 
I think of it. That dead man gives me more emo- 
tions than all the living men I ever coquetted with; 
he constantly recurs to my mind.” 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 11 T 

“ What was his name? ” asked the marquise. 

“Oh! a very common one: Michel Chrestien.” 

“You have done well to tell me,” said Madame 
d’Espard, eagerly. “I have often heard of him. 
This Michel Chrestien was the intimate friend of a 
remarkable man you have already expressed a wish to 
see, — Daniel d’Arthez, who comes to my house some 
two or three times a year. Chrestien, who was really 
killed at Saint-Merri, had no lack of friends. I have 
heard it said that he was one of those born statesmen 
to whom, like de Marsay, nothing is wanting but 
opportunity to become all they might be.” 

“Then he had better be dead,” said the princess, 
with a melancholy air, under which she concealed her 
thoughts. 

“Will you come to my house some evening and 
meet d’Arthez ? ” said the marquise. “You can talk 
of your ghost.” 

“Yes, I will,” replied the princess. 


118 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 


H. 

DANIEL D’ARTHEZ. 

A few days after this conversation Blondet and 
Rastignac, who knew d’Arthez, promised Madame 
d’Espard that they would bring him to dine with her. 
This promise might have proved rash had it not been 
for the name of the princess, a meeting with whom 
was not a matter of indifference to the great writer. 

Daniel d’Arthez, one of the rare men who, in our 
day, unite a noble character with great talent, had 
already obtained, not all the popularity his works 
deserve, but a respectful esteem to which souls of his 
own calibre could add nothing. His reputation will 
certainly increase; but in the eyes of connoisseurs it 
had already attained its full development. He is one 
of those authors who, sooner or later, are put in their 
right place, and never lose it. A poor nobleman, he 
had understood his epoch well enough to seek per- 
sonal distinction only. He had struggled long in the 
Parisian arena, against the wishes of a rich uncle 
who, by a contradiction which vanity must explain, 
after leaving his nephew a prey to the utmost penury, 
bequeathed to the man who had reached celebrity the 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 119 

fortune so pitilessly refused to the unknown writer. 
This sudden change in his position made no change 
in Daniel d’Afthez’s habits; he continued to work 
with a simplicity worthy of the antique past, and even 
assumed new toils by accepting a seat in the Chamber 
of Deputies, where he took his seat on the Right. 

Since his accession to fame he had sometimes gone 
into society. One of his old friends, a now-famous 
physician, Horace Bianchon, persuaded him to make 
the acquaintance of the Baron de Rastignac, under- 
secretary of State, and a friend of de Marsay, the 
prime minister. These two political officials acqui- 
esced, rather nobly, in the strong wish of d’Arthez, 
Bianchon, and other friends of Michel Chrestien for 
the removal of the body of that republican to the 
church of Saint-Merri for the purpose of giving it 
funeral honors. Gratitude for a service which con- 
trasted with the administrative rigor displayed at a 
time when political passions were so violent, had 
bound, so to speak, d’Arthez to Rastignac. The 
latter and de Marsay were much too clever not to 
profit by that circumstance; and thus they won over 
other friends of Michel Chrestien, who did not share 
his political opinions, and who now attached them- 
selves to the new government. One of them, Leon 
Giraud, appointed in the first instance master of 
petitions, became eventually a Councillor of State. 


120 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 

The whole existence of Daniel d’Arthez is conse- 
crated to work; he sees society only by snatches; it 
is to him a sort of dream. His house is a convent, 
where he leads the life of a Benedictine; the same 
sobriety of regimen, the same regularity of occupa- 
tion. His friends knew that up to the present time 
woman had been to him no more than an always 
dreaded circumstance ; he had observed her too much 
not to fear her; but by dint of studying her he had 
ceased to understand her, — like, in this, to those deep 
strategists who are always beaten on unexpected 
ground, where their scientific axioms are either modi- 
fied or contradicted. In character he still remains a 
simple-hearted child, all the while proving himself an 
observer of the first rank. This contrast, apparently 
impossible, is explainable to those who know how to 
measure the depths which separate faculties from feel- 
ings; the former proceed from the head, the latter 
from the heart. A man can be a great man and a 
wicked one, just as he can be a fool and a devoted 
lover. D’Arthez is one of those privileged beings in 
whom shrewdness of mind and a broad expanse of the 
qualities of the brain do not exclude either the strength 
or the grandeur of sentiments. He is, by rare privi- 
lege, equally a man of action and a man of thought. 
His private life is noble and generous. If he care- 
fully avoided love, it was because he knew himself, 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 121 

and felt a premonition of the empire such a passion 
would exercise upon him. 

For several years the crushing toil by which he pre- 
pared the solid ground of his subsequent works, and 
the chill of poverty, were marvellous preservatives. 
But when ease with his inherited fortune came to him, 
he formed a vulgar and most incomprehensible con- 
nection with a rather handsome woman, belonging to 
the lower classes, without education or manners, 
whom he carefully concealed from every eye. Michel 
Chrestien attributed to men of genius the power of 
transforming the most massive creatures into sylphs, 
fools into clever women, peasants into countesses; 
the more accomplished a woman was, the more 
she lost her value in their eyes, for, according to 
Michel, their imagination had the less to do. In his 
opinion love, a mere matter of the senses to inferior 
beings, was to great souls the most immense of all 
moral creations and the most binding. To justify 
d’Arthez, he instanced the example of Raffaele and 
the Fornarina. He might have offered himself as an 
instance for his theory, he who had seen an angel in 
the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse. This strange fancy 
of d’Arthez might, however, be explained in other 
ways ; perhaps he had despaired of meeting here below 
with a woman who answered to that delightful vision 
which all men of intellect dream of and cherish; per- 


122 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan, 

haps his heart was too sensitive, too delicate, to yield 
itself to a woman of society ; perhaps he thought best 
to let nature have her way, and keep his illusions by 
cultivating his ideal; perhaps he had laid aside love 
as being incompatible with his work and the regu- 
larity of a monastic life which love would have wholly 
upset. 

For several months past d’Arthez had been sub- 
jected to the jests and satire of Blondet and Rastignac, 
who reproached him with knowing neither the world 
nor women. According to them, his authorship was 
sufficiently advanced, and his works numerous enough, 
to allow him a few distractions ; he had a fine fortune, 
and here he was living like a student; he enjoyed 
nothing, — neither his money nor his fame ; he was 
ignorant of the exquisite enjoyments of the noble and 
delicate love which well-born and well-bred women 
could inspire and feel ; he knew nothing of the charm- 
ing refinements of language, nothing of the proofs of 
affection incessantly given by soul and intellect, noth- 
ing of those desires ennobled by manners, nothing of 
the angelic forms given by refined women to the com- 
monest things. He might, perhaps, know woman; 
but he knew nothing of the divinity. Why not take 
his rightful place in the world, and taste the delights 
of Parisian society? 

“Why doesn’t a man who bears party per bend 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 123 

gules and or, a bezant and crab counterchanged, ” 
cried Rastignac, “display that ancient escutcheon of 
Picardy on the panels of a carriage? You have thirty 
thousand francs a year, and the proceeds of your pen ; 
you have justified your motto: Ars thes aurusque 
virtus , that punning device our ancestors were always 
seeking, and yet you never appear in the Bois de 
Boulogne! We live in times when virtue ought to 
show itself.” 

“If you read your works to that species of stout 
Laforet, whom you seem to fancy, I would forgive 
you,” said Blondet. “But, my dear fellow, you are 
living on dry bread, materially speaking; in the 
matter of intellect you haven’t even bread.” 

This friendly little warfare had been going on for 
several months between Daniel and his friends, when 
Madame d’Espard asked Rastignac and Blondet to 
induce d’Arthez to come and dine with her, telling 
them that the Princesse de Cadignan had a great 
desire to see that celebrated man. Such curiosities 
are to certain women what magic lanterns are to chil- 
dren, — a pleasure to the eyes, but rather shallow and 
full of disappointments. The more sentiments a man 
of talent excites at a distance, the less he responds to 
them on nearer view; the more brilliant fancy has 
pictured him, the duller he will seem in reality. Con- 
sequently, disenchanted curiosity is often unjust. 


124 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 

Neither Blondet nor Rastignac could deceive 
d’ Arthez ; but they told him, laughing, that they now 
offered him a most seductive opportunity to polish up 
his heart and know the supreme fascinations which 
love conferred on a Parisian great lady. The prin- 
cess was evidently in love with him ; he had nothing 
to fear but everything to gain by accepting the inter- 
view ; it was quite impossible he could descend from 
the pedestal on which Madame de Cadignan had 
placed him. Neither Blondet nor Rastignac saw any 
impropriety in attributing this love to the princess; 
she whose past had given rise to so many anecdotes 
could very well stand that lesser calumny. Together 
they began to relate to d’Arthez the adventures of 
the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse: her first affair with 
de Marsay; her second with d’Ajuda, whom she had, 
they said, distracted from his wife, thus avenging 
Madame de Beauseant; also her later connection with 
young d’Esgrignon, who had travelled with her in 
Italy, and had horribly compromised himself on her 
account; after that they told him how unhappy she 
had been with a certain celebrated ambassador, how 
happy with a Russian general, besides becoming the 
Egeria of two ministers of Foreign affairs, and vari- 
ous other anecdotes. D’Arthez replied that he knew 
a great deal more than they could tell him about her 
through their poor friend, Michel Chrestien, who 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 125 

adored lier secretly for four years, and had well-nigh 
gone mad about her. 

“I have often accompanied him,” said Daniel, “to 
the opera. He would make me run through the streets 
as fast as her horses that he might see the princess 
through the window of her coupe.” 

“Well, there you have a topic all ready for you,” 
said Blondet, smiling. “ This is the very woman you 
need ; she ’ll initiate you most gracefully into the 
mysteries of elegance; but take care! she has wasted 
many fortunes. The beautiful Diane is one of those 
spendthrifts who don’t cost a penny, but for whom a 
man spends millions. Give yourself up to her, body 
and soul, if you choose; but keep your money in your 
hand, like the old fellow in Girodet’s 4 Deluge.’ ” 

From the tenor of these remarks it was to be inferred 
that the princess had the depth of a precipice, the 
grace of a queen, the corruption of diplomatists, the 
mystery of a first initiation, and the dangerous quali- 
ties of a siren. The two clever men of the world, 
incapable of foreseeing the denouement of their joke, 
succeeded in presenting Diane d’Uxelles as a consum- 
mate specimen of the Parisian woman, the cleverest 
of coquettes, the most enchanting mistress in the 
world. Right or wrong, the woman whom they thus 
treated so lightly was sacred to d’ Arthez ; his desire 
to meet her needed no spur; he consented to do so at 


126 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 

the first word, which was all the two friends wanted 
of him. 

Madame d’Espard went to see the princess as soon 
as she had received this answer. 

“My dear, do you feel yourself in full beauty and 
coquetry? ” she said. “ If so, come and dine with me 
a few days hence, and I ’ll serve up d’Arthez. Our 
man of genius is by nature, it seems, a savage; he 
fears women, and has never loved ! Make your plans 
on that. He is all intellect, and so simple that he ’ll 
mislead you into feeling no distrust. But his pene- 
tration, which is wholly retrospective, acts later, and 
frustrates calculation. You may hoodwink him to-day, 
but to-morrow nothing can dupe him.” 

“Ah!” cried the princess, “ if I were only thirty 
years old what amusement I might have with him! 
The one enjoyment I have lacked up to the present 
day is a man of intellect to fool. I have had only 
partners, never adversaries. Love was a mere game 
instead of being a battle.” 

“Dear princess, admit that I am very generous; 
for, after all, you know! — charity begins at home.” 

The two women looked at each other, laughing, and 
clasped hands in a friendly way. Assuredly they 
both knew each other’s secrets, and this was not the 
first man nor the first service that one had given to 
the other; for sincere and lasting friendships between 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan . 127 

women of the world need to be cemented by a few 
little crimes. When two friends are able to kill each 
other reciprocally, and see a poisoned dagger in each 
other’s hand, they present a touching spectacle of 
harmony, which is never troubled, unless, by chance, 
one of them is careless enough tadrop her weapon. 

So, eight days later, a little dinner such as are 
given to intimates by verbal invitation only, during 
which the doors are closed to all other visitors, took 
place at Madame d’Espard’s house. Five persons were 
invited, — Simile Blondet and Madame de Montcornet, 
Daniel d’Arthez, Rastignac, and the Princesse de 
Cadignan. Counting the mistress of the house, there 
were as many men as women. 

Chance never exerted itself to make wiser prepara- 
tions than those which opened the way to a meeting 
between d’Arthez and Madame de Cadignan. The 
princess is still considered one of the chief authorities 
on dress, which, to women, is the first of arts. On 
this occasion she wore a gown of blue velvet with 
flowing white sleeves, and a tulle guimpe , slightly 
frilled and edged with blue, covering the shoulders, 
and rising nearly to the throat, as we see in several of 
Raffaelle’s portraits. Her maid had dressed her hair 
with white heather, adroitly placed among its blond 
cascades, which were one of the great beauties to 
which she owed her celebrity. 


128 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 


Certainly Diane did not look to be more than 
twenty-five years old. Four years of solitude and 
repose had restored the freshness of her complexion. 
Besides, there are moments when the desire to please 
gives an increase of beauty to women. The will is 
not without influence on the variations of the face. 
If violent emotions have the power to yellow the white 
tones of persons of bilious and melancholy tempera- 
ment, and to green lymphatic faces, shall we not grant 
to desire, hope, and joy, the faculty of clearing the 
skin, giving brilliancy to the eye, and brightening the 
glow of beauty with a light as jocund as that of a 
lovely morning? The celebrated fairness of the prin- 
cess had taken on a ripeness which now made her 
seem more august. At this moment of her life, im- 
pressed by her many vicissitudes and by serious reflec- 
tions, her noble, dreamy brow harmonized delightfully 
with the slow, majestic glance of her blue eyes. It 
was impossible for the ablest physiognomist to 
imagine calculation or self-will beneath that unspeak- 
able delicacy of feature. There are faces of women 
which deceive knowledge, and mislead observation by 
their calmness and delicacy; it is necessary to examine 
such faces when passions speak, and that is difficult, 
or after they have spoken, which is no longer of any 
use, for then the woman is old and has ceased to 
dissimulate. 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 129 

The princess is one of those impenetrable women; 
she can make herself what she pleases to be : playful, 
childlike, distractingly innocent; or reflective, serious, 
and profound enough to excite anxiety. She came to 
Madame d’Espard’ s dinner with the intention of be- 
ing a gentle, simple woman, to whom life was known 
only through its deceptions: a woman full of soul, 
and calumniated, but resigned, — in short, a wounded 
angel. 

She arrived early, so as to pose on a sofa near the 
fire beside Madame d’Espard, as she wished to be 
first seen : that is, in one of those attitudes in which 
science is concealed beheath an exquisite naturalness; 
a studied attitude, putting in relief the beautiful ser- 
pentine outline which, starting from the foot, rises 
gracefully to the hip, and continues with adorable 
curves to the shoulder, presenting, in fact, a profile of 
the whole body. With a subtlety which few women 
would have dreamed of, Diane, to the great amaze- 
ment of the marquise, had brought her son with her. 
After a moment’s reflection, Madame d’Espard pressed 
the princess’s hand, with a look of intelligence that 
seemed to say: — 

“I understand you! By making d’Arth£z accept 
all the difficulties at once you will not have to conquer 
them later.” 

Rastignac brought d’Arthez. The princess made 
9 


130 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 

none of those compliments to the celebrated author 
with which vulgar persons overwhelmed him ; but she 
treated him with a kindness full of graceful respect, 
which, with her, was the utmost extent of her conces- 
sions. Her manner was doubtless the same with the 
King of France and the royal princes. She seemed 
happy to see this great man, and glad that she had 
sought him. Persons of taste, like the princess, are 
especially distinguished for their manner of listening, 
for an affability without superciliousness, which is to 
politeness what practice is to virtue. When the cele- 
brated man spoke, she took an attentive attitude, a 
thousand times more flattering than the best-seasoned 
compliments. The mutual presentation was made 
quietly, without emphasis, and in perfectly good 
taste, by the marquise. 

At dinner d’Arth&z was placed beside the princess, 
who, far from imitating the eccentricities of diet 
which many affected women display, ate her dinner 
with a very good appetite, making it a point of honor 
to seem a natural woman, without strange ways or 
fancies. Between two courses she took advantage of 
the conversation becoming general to say to d’Arthez, 
in a sort of aside : — 

“The secret of the pleasure I take in finding 
myself beside you, is the desire I feel to learn 
something of an unfortunate friend of yours, mon- 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 131 

sieur. He died for another cause than ours; but I 
was under the greatest obligations to him, although 
unable to acknowledge or thank him for them. I 
know that you were one of his best friends. Your 
mutual friendship, pure and unalterable, is a claim 
upon me. You w T ill not, I am sure, think it extraor- 
dinary, that I have wished to know all you could tell 
me of a man so dear to you. Though I am attached 
to the exiled family, and bound, of course, to hold 
monarchical opinions, I am not among those who think 
it is impossible to be both republican and noble in 
heart. Monarchy and the republic are two forms of 
government which do not stifle noble sentiments.” 

“Michel Chrestien was an angel, madame,” replied 
Daniel, in a voice of emotion. “ I don’t know among 
the heroes of antiquity a greater than he. Be careful 
not to think him one of those narrow-minded repub- 
licans who would like to restore the Convention and 
the amenities of the Committee of Public Safety. 
No, Michel dreamed of the Swiss federation applied 
to all Europe. Let us own, between ourselves, that 
after the glorious government of one man only, 
which; as I think, is particularly suited to our nation, 
Michel’s system would lead to the suppression of war 
in this old world, and its reconstruction on bases other 
than those of conquest, which formerly feudalized 
it. From this point of view the republicans came 


132 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 

nearest to his idea. That is why he lent them his 
arm in July, and was killed at Saint-Merri. Though 
completely apart in opinion, he and I were closely 
bound together as friends.” 

“That is noble praise for both natures,” said 
Madame de Cadignan, timidly. 

“During the last four years of his life,” continued 
Daniel, “he made to me alone a confidence of his 
love for you, and this confidence knitted closer than 
ever the already strong ties of our brotherly affection. 
He alone, madame, can have loved you as you ought 
to be loved. Many a time I have been pelted with 
rain as we accompanied your carriage at the pace of 
the horses, to keep at a parallel distance, and see you 
— admire you.” 

“Ah! monsieur,” said the princess, “ how can I 
repay such feelings ! ” 

“Why is Michel not here!” exclaimed Daniel, in 
melancholy accents. 

“ Perhaps he would not have loved me long,” said 
the princess, shaking her head sadly. “Republicans 
are more absolute in their ideas than we absolutists, 
whose fault is indulgence. No doubt he imagined me 
perfect, and society would have cruelly undeceived 
him. We are pursued, we women, by as many calum- 
nies as you authors are compelled to endure in your 
literary life; but we, alas! cannot defend ourselves 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 133 

either by our works or by our fame. The world will 
not believe us to be what we are, but what it thinks 
us to be. It would soon have hidden from his eyes 
the real but unknown woman that is in me, behind 
the false portrait of the imaginary woman which the 
world considers true. He would have come to think 
me unworthy of the noble feelings he had for me, 
and incapable of comprehending him.” 

Here the princess shook her head, swaying the 
beautiful blond curls, full of heather, with a touch- 
ing gesture. This plaintive expression of grievous 
doubts and hidden sorrows is indescribable. Daniel 
understood them all; and he looked at the princess 
with keen emotion. 

“And yet, the night on which I last saw him, after 
the revolution of July, I was on the point of giving 
way to the desire I felt to take his hand and press it 
before all the world, under the peristyle of ’the opera- 
house. But the thought came to me that such a proof 
of gratitude would be misinterpreted; like so many 
other little things done from noble motives which are 
called to-day the follies of Madame de Maufrigneuse, 
— things that I can never explain, for none but my 
son and God have understood me.” 

These words, breathed into the ear of the listener, 
in tones inaudible to the other guests, and with accents 
worthy of the cleverest actress, were calculated to 


134 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 

reach the heart; and they did reach that of d’Arth&z. 
There was no question of himself in the matter; this 
woman was seeking to rehabilitate herself in favor of 
the dead. She had been calumniated; and she evi- 
dently wanted to know if anything had tarnished her 
in the eyes of him who had loved her ; had he died 
with all his illusions? 

“Michel,” replied d’Arthez, “was one of those men 
who love absolutely, and who, if they choose ill, can 
suffer without renouncing the woman they have once 
elected.” 

“Was I loved thus?” she said, with an air of 
exalted beatitude. 

“ Yes, madame.” 

“ I made his happiness? ” 

“ For four years.” 

“ A woman never hears of such a thing without a 
sentiment of proud satisfaction,” she said, turning her 
sweet and noble face to d’Arthez with a movement 
full of modest confusion. 

One of the most skilful manoeuvres of these actresses 
is to veil their manner when words are too expressive, 
and speak with their eyes when language is restrained. 
These clever discords, slipped into the music of their 
love, be it false or true, produce irresistible attractions. 

“Is it not,” she said, lowering her voice and her 
eyes, after feeling well assured they had produced her 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 135 

effect, — “is it not fulfilling one’s destiny to have 
rendered a great man happy ? ” 

“Did he not write that to you? ” 

“Yes; but I wanted to be sure, quite sure; for, 
believe me, monsieur, in putting me so high he was 
not mistaken.” 

Women know how to give a peculiar sacredness to 
their words ; they communicate something vibrant to 
them, which extends the meaning of their ideas, and 
gives them depth; though later their fascinated 
listener may not remember precisely what they said, 
their end has been completely attained, — which is the 
object of all eloquence. The princess might at that 
moment have been wearing the diadem of France, and 
her brow could not have seemed more imposing than 
it was beneath that crown of golden hair, braided like 
a coronet, and adorned with heather. She was simple 
and calm ; nothing betrayed a sense of any necessity 
to appear so, nor any desire to seem grand or loving. 
D’Arthez, the solitary toiler, to whom the ways of the 
world were unknown, whom study had wrapped in its 
protecting veils, was the dupe of her tones and words. 
He was under the spell of those exquisite manners ; he 
admired that perfect beauty, ripened by misfortune, 
placid in retirement; he adored the union of so rare a 
mind and so noble a soul ; and he longed to become, 
himself, the heir of Michel Chrestien. 


136 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 

The beginning of this passion was, as in the case 
of almost all deep thinkers, an idea. Looking at the 
princess, studying the shape of her head, the arrange- 
ment of those sweet features, her figure, her hand, so 
finely modelled, closer than when he accompanied his 
friend in their wild rush through the streets, he was 
struck by the surprising phenomenon of the moral 
second-sight which a man exalted by love invariably 
finds within him. With what lucidity had Michel 
Chrestien read into that soul, that heart, illumined by 
the fires of love ! Thus the princess acquired, in 
d’Arthez’s eyes, another charm ; a halo of poesy sur- 
rounded her. 

As the dinner proceeded, Daniel called to mind the 
various confidences of his friend, his despair, his 
hopes, the noble poems of a true sentiment sung to 
his ear alone, in honor of this woman. It is rare that 
a man passes without remorse from the position of 
confidant to that of rival, and d’Arthez was free to do 
so without dishonor. He had suddenly, in a moment, 
perceived the enormous differences existing between 
a well-bred woman, that flower of the great world, and 
common women, though of the latter he did not know 
beyond one specimen. He was thus captured on the 
most accessible and sensitive sides of his soul and of 
his genius. Impelled by his simplicity, and by the 
impetuosity of his ideas, to lay immediate claim to 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 137 

this woman, he found himself restrained by society, 
also by the barrier which the manners and, let us say 
the word, the majesty of the princess placed between 
them. The conversation, which remained upon the 
topic of Michel Chrestien until the dessert, was an 
excellent pretext for both to speak in a low voice: 
love, sympathy, comprehension! she could pose as a 
maligned and misunderstood woman; he could slip 
his feet into the shoes of the dead republican. Per- 
haps his candid mind detected itself in regretting his 
dead friend less. The princess, at the moment when 
the dessert appeared upon the table, and the guests 
were separated by a brilliant hedge of fruits and sweet- 
meats, thought best to put an end to this flow of con- 
fidences by a charming little speech, in which she 
delicately expressed the idea that Daniel and Michel 
were twin souls. 

After this d’Arthez threw himself into the general 
conversation with the gayety of a child, and a self- 
conceited air that was worthy of a schoolboy. When 
they left the dining-room, the princess took d’Arthez ’s 
arm, in the simplest manner, to return to Madame 
cl’Espard’s little salon. As they crossed the grand 
salon she walked slowly, and when sufficiently sep- 
arated from the marquise, who was on Blondet’s arm, 
she stopped. 

“I do not wish to be inaccessible to the friend of 


138 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 

that poor man,” she said to d’Arthez; “and though I 
have made it a rule to receive no visitors, you will 
always be welcome in my house. Do not think this a 
favor. A favor is only for strangers, and to my mind 
you and I seem old friends ; I see in you the brother 
of Michel.” 

D’Arthez could only press her arm, unable to make 
other reply. 

After coffee was served, Diane de Cadignan wrapped 
herself, with coquettish motions, in a large shawl, and 
ijse. Blondet and Rastignac were too much men of 
the world, and too politic to make the least remon- 
strance, or try to detain her; but Madame d’Espard 
compelled her friend to sit down again, whispering in 
her ear : — 

“Wait till the servants have had their dinner; the 
carriage is not ready yet.” 

So saying, the marquise made a sign to the foot- 
man, who was taking away the coffee-tray. Madame 
de Montcornet perceived that the princess and Madame 
d’Espard had a word to say to each other, and she 
drew around her d’Arthez, Rastignac, and Blondet, 
amusing them with one of those clever paradoxi- 
cal attacks which Parisian women understand so 
thoroughly. 

“ Well,” said the marquise to Diane, “ what do you 
think of him ? ” 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 139 

“He is an adorable child, just out of swaddling- 
clothes! This time, like all other times, it will only 
be a triumph without a struggle.” 

“ Well, it is disappointing,” said Madame d’Espard. 
“ But we might evade it.” 

“How?” 

“ Let me be your rival.” 

“ Just as you please,” replied the princess. “ I Ve 
decided on my course. Genius is a condition of the 
brain; I don’t know what the heart gets out of it; 
we’ll talk about that later.” 

Hearing the last few words, which were wholly in- 
comprehensible to her, Madame d’Espard returned to 
the general conversation, showing neither offence at 
that indifferent “As you please,” nor curiosity as to 
the outcome of the interview. The princess stayed 
an hour longer, seated on the sofa near the fire, in the 
careless, nonchalant attitude of Guerin’s Dido, listen- 
ing with the attention of an absorbed mind, and look- 
ing at Daniel now and then, without disguising her 
admiration, which never went, however, beyond due 
limits. She slipped away when the carriage was 
announced, with a pressure of the hand to the mar- 
quise, and an inclination of the head to Madame de 
Montcornet. 

The evening concluded without any allusion to the 
princess. The other guests profited by the sort of 


140 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 

exaltation which d’Arthez had reached, for he put 
forth the treasures of his mind. In Blondet and 
Rastignac he certainly had two acolytes of the first 
quality to bring forth the delicacy of his wit and the 
breadth of his intellect. As for the two women, they 
had long been counted among the cleverest in society. 
This evening was like a halt in the oasis of a desert, — 
a rare enjoyment, and well appreciated by these four 
persons, habitually victimized to the endless caution 
entailed by the world of salons and politics. There 
are beings who have the privilege of passing among 
men like beneficent stars, whose light illumines the 
mind, while its rays send a glow to the heart. 
D’Arthez was one of those beings. A writer who 
rises to his level, accustoms himself to free thought, 
and forgets that in society all things cannot be said ; 
it is impossible for such a man to observe the restraint 
of persons who live in the world perpetually; but as 
his eccentricities of thought bore the mark of origi- 
nality, no one felt inclined to complain. This zest, 
this piquancy, rare in mere talent, this youthfulness 
and simplicity of soul which made d’Arthez so nobly 
original, gave a delightful charm to this evening. 
He left the house with Rastignac, who, as they drove 
home, asked him how he liked the princess. 

“Michel did well to love her,” replied d’Arthez; 
“she is, indeed, an extraordinary woman.” 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 141 

“Very extraordinary,” replied Rastignac, dryly. 
“By the tone of your voice I should judge you were 
in love with her already. You will be in her house 
within three days; and I am too old a denizen of 
Paris not to know what will be the upshot of that. 
Well, my dear Daniel, I do entreat you not to allow 
yourself to be drawn into any confusion of interests, 
so to speak. Love the princess if you feel any love 
for her in your heart, but keep an eye on your fortune. 
She has never taken or asked a penny from any man 
on earth, she is far too much of a d’Uxelles and a 
Cadignan for that; but, to my knowledge, she has 
"not only spent her own fortune, which was very con- 
siderable, but she has made others waste millions. 
How? why? by what means? No one knows; she 
does n’t know herself. I myself saw her swallow up, 
some thirteen years ago, the entire fortune of a charm- 
ing young fellow, and that of an old notary, in twenty 
months.” 

“Thirteen years ago!” exclaimed d’Arthez, — 
“why, how old is she now?” 

“Didn’t you see, at dinner,” replied Rastignac, 
laughing, “her son, the Due de Maufrigneuse. That 
young man is nineteen years old; nineteen and seven- 
teen make — ” 

“Thirty-six!” cried the amazed author. “I gave 
her twenty.” 


142 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 

“She ’ll accept them,” said Rastignac; “but don’t 
be uneasy, she will always be twenty to you. You 
are about to enter the most fantastic of worlds. 
Good-night, here you are at home,” said the baron, 
as they entered the rue de Bellefond, where d’Arthez 
lived in a pretty little house of his own. “We shall 
meet at Mademoiselle des Touches’s in the course of 
the week/’ 


Secrets of the Princesse de Oadignan. 143 


III. 

THE PRINCESS GOES TO WORK. 

D’Arthez allowed love to enter his heart after the 
manner of my Uncle Toby, without making the 
slightest resistance; he proceeded by adoration with- 
out criticism, and by exclusive admiration. The prin- 
cess, that noble creature, one of the most remarkable 
creations of our monstrous Paris, where all things are 
possible, good as well as evil, became — whatever 
vulgarity the course of time may have given to the 
expression — the angel of his dream. To fully under- 
stand the sudden transformation of this illustrious 
author, it is necessary to realize the simplicity that 
constant work and solitude leave in the heart ; all that 
love — reduced to a mere need, and now repugnant, 
beside an ignoble woman — excites of regret and long- 
ings for diviner sentiments in the higher regions of the 
soul. D’Arthez was, indeed, the child, the boy that 
Madame de Cadignan had recognized. An illumina- 
tion something like his own had taken place in the 
beautiful Diane. At last she had met that superior 
man whom all women desire and seek, if only to make 


144 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 

a plaything of him, — that power which they consent to 
obey, if only for the pleasure of subduing it ; at last 
she had found the grandeurs of the intellect united 
w r ith the simplicity of a heart all new to love; and 
she saw, with untold happiness, that these merits were 
contained in a form that pleased her. She thought 
d’Arthez handsome, and perhaps he was. Though he 
had reached the age of gravity (for he was now thirty- 
eight) , he still preserved a flower of youth, due to the 
sober and ascetic life which he had led. Like all 
men of sedentary habits, and statesmen, he had ac- 
quired a certainly reasonable embonpoint. When very 
young, he bore some resemblance to Bonaparte; and 
the likeness still continued, as much as a man with 
black eyes and thick, dark hair could resemble a 
sovereign with blue eyes and scanty, chestnut hair. 
But whatever there once was of ardent and noble 
ambition in the great author’s eyes had been some- 
what quenched by successes. The thoughts with 
which that brow once teemed had flowered ; the lines 
of the hollow face were filling out. Ease now spread 
its golden tints where, in youth, poverty had laid the 
yellow tones of the class of temperament whose forces 
band together to support a crushing and long-con- 
tinued struggle. If you observe carefully the noble 
faces of ancient philosophers, you will always find 
those deviations from the type of a perfect human 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan . 145 

face which show the characteristic to which each 
countenance owes its originality, chastened by the 
habit of meditation, and by the calmness necessary 
for intellectual labor. The most irregular features, 
like those of Socrates, for instance, become, after a 
time, expressive of an almost divine serenity. 

To the noble simplicity which characterized his 
head, d’Arthez added a naive expression, the natural- 
ness of a child, and a touching kindliness. He did 
not have that politeness tinged with insincerity with 
which, in society, the best-bred persons and the most 
amiable assume qualities in which they are often 
lacking, leaving those they have thus duped wounded 
and distressed. He might, indeed, fail to observe 
certain rules of social life, owing to his isolated mode 
of living ; but he never shocked the sensibilities, and 
therefore this perfume of savagery made the peculiar 
affability of a man of great talent the more agreeable ; 
such men know how to leave their superiority in their 
studies, and come down to the social level, lending 
their backs, like Henri IV., to the children’s leap- 
frog, and their minds to fools. 

If d’Arthez did not brace himself against the spell 
which the princess had cast about him, neither did 
she herself argue the matter in her own mind, on 
returning home. It was settled for her. She loved 
with all her knowledge and all her ignorance. If she 

10 


146 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan . 

questioned herself at all, it was to ask whether she 
deserved so great a happiness, and what she had done 
that Heaven should send her such an angel. She 
wanted to be worthy of that love, to perpetuate it, to 
make it her own forever, and to gently end her career 
of frivolity in the paradise she now foresaw. As for 
coquetting, quibbling, resisting, she never once 
thought of it. She was thinking of something very 
different! — of the grandeur of men of genius, and the 
certainty which her heart divined that they would 
never subject the woman they chose to ordinary laws. 

Here begins one of those unseen comedies, played 
in the secret regions of the consciousness between two 
beings of whom one will be the dupe of the other, 
though it keeps on this side of wickedness; one of 
those dark and comic dramas to which that of Tartuffe 
is mere child’s play, — dramas that do not enter the 
scenic domain, although they are natural, conceivable, 
and even justifiable by necessity; dramas which may 
be characterized as not vice, only the other side of it. 

The princess began by sending for d’Arthez’s 
books, of which she had never, as yet, read a single 
word, although she had managed to maintain a twenty 
minutes’ eulogium and discussion of them without a 
blunder. She now read them all. Then she wanted 
to compare these books with the best that contem- 
porary literature had produced. By the time d’ Arthez 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 147 

came to see her she was having an indigestion of 
mind. Expecting this visit, she had daily made a 
toilet of what may be called the superior order; 
that is, a toilet which expresses an idea, and makes it 
accepted by the eye without the owner of the eye 
knowing wh}' or wherefore. She presented an harmoni- 
ous combination of shades of gray, a sort of semi- 
mourning, full of graceful renunciation, — the garments 
of a woman who holds to life only through a few natu- 
ral ties, — her child, for instance, — but who is weary 
of life. Those garments bore witness to an elegant 
disgust, not reaching, however, as far as suicide ; no, 
she would live out her days in these earthly galleys. 

She received d’Arthez as a woman who expected 
him, and as if he had already been to see her a hun- 
dred times ; she did him the honor to treat him like 
an old acquaintance, and she put him at his ease by 
pointing to a seat on a sofa, while she finished a note 
she w r as then writing. The conversation began in 
a commonplace manner: the weather, the ministry, 
de Marsay’s illness, the hopes of the legitimists. 
D’Arthez was an absolutist; the princess could not 
be ignorant of the opinions of a man who sat in the 
Chamber among the fifteen or twenty persons who 
represented the legitimist party ; she found means to 
tell him how she had fooled de Marsay to the top of 
his bent; then, by an easy transition to the royal 


148 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 

family and to Madame, and the devotion of the Prince 
de Cadignan to their service, she drew d’Arthez’s 
attention to the prince: — 

“ There is this to be said for him: he loved his mas- 
ters, and was faithful to them. His public character 
consoles me for the sufferings his private life has 
inflicted upon me — Have you never remarked,” she 
went on, cleverly leaving the prince aside, “ you who 
observe so much, that men have two natures: one for 
their homes, their wives, their private lives, — this is 
their true self; here no mask, no dissimulation; they 
do not give themselves the trouble to disguise a feel- 
ing; they are what they are , and it is often horrible! 
The other man is for others, for the world, for salons; 
the court, the sovereign, the public often see them 
grand, and noble, and generous, embroidered with 
virtues, adorned with fine language, full of admirable 
qualities. What a horrible jest it is! — and the world 
is surprised, sometimes, at the caustic smile of certain 
women, at their air of superiority to their husbands, 
and their indifference — ” 

She let her hand fall along the arm of her chair, 
without ending her sentence, but the gesture admirably 
completed the speech. She saw d’Arthez watching 
her flexible figure, gracefully bending in the depths of 
her easy-chair, noting the folds of her gown, and the 
pretty little ruffle which sported on her breast, — one 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 149 

of those audacities of the toilet that are suited only 
to slender waists, — and she resumed the thread of her 
thoughts as if she were speaking to herself: — 

“ But I will say no more. You writers have ended 
by making ridiculous all women who think they are 
misunderstood, or ill-mated, and who try to make 
themselves dramatically interesting, — attempts which 
seem to me, I must say, intolerably vulgar. There 
are but two things for women in that plight to do, — 
yield, and all is over; resist, and amuse themselves; 
in either case they should keep silence. It is true 
that I neither yielded wholly, nor resisted wholly; but, 
perhaps, that was only the more reason why I should 
be silent. What folly for women to complain! If 
they have not proved the stronger, they have failed in 
sense, in tact, in capacity, and they deserve their 
fate. Are they not queens in France ? They can play 
with you as they like, when they like, and as much 
as they like.” Here she danced her vinaigrette with 
an airy movement of feminine impertinence and 
mocking gayety. “ I have often heard miserable little 
specimens of my sex regretting that they were women, 
wishing they were men ; I have always regarded 'them 
with pity. If I had to choose, I should still elect to 
be a woman. A fine pleasure, indeed, to owe one’s 
triumph to force, and to all those powers which you 
give yourselves by the laws you make! But to see 


150 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 

you at our feet, saying and doing foolish things, — 
ah! it is an intoxicating pleasure to feel within our 
souls that weakness triumphs ! But when we triumph, 
we ought to keep silence, under pain of losing our 
empire. Beaten, a woman’s pride should gag her. 
The slave’s silence alarms the master.” 

This chatter was uttered in a voice so softly sarcas- 
tic, so dainty, and with such coquettish motions of 
the head, that d’Arthez, to whom this style of woman 
was totally unknown, sat before her exactly like a 
partridge charmed by a setter. 

“ I entreat you, madame,” he said, at last, “ to tell 
me how it was possible that a man could make you 
suffer? Be assured that where, as you say, other 
women are common and vulgar, you can only seem 
distinguished; your manner of saying things would 
make a cook-book interesting.” 

“You go fast in friendship,” she said, in a grave 
voice which' made d’Arthez extremely uneasy. 

The conversation changed; the hour was late, and 
the poor man of genius went away contrite for having 
seemed curious, and for wounding the sensitive heart 
of that rare woman who had so strangely suffered. 
As for her, she had passed her life in amusing herself 
with men, and was another Don Juan in female attire, 
with this difference: she would certainly not have 
invited the Commander to supper, and would have 
got the better of any statue. 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 151 

It is impossible to continue this tale without saying 
a word about the Prince de Cadignan, better known 
under the name of the Due de Maufrigneuse; other- 
wise the spice of the princess’s confidences would be 
lost, and strangers would not understand the Parisian 
comedy she was about to play for her man of genius. 

The Due de Maufrigneuse, like a true son of the old 
Prince de Cadignan, is a tall, lean man, of elegant 
shape, very graceful, a sayer of witty things, colonel 
by the grace of God, and a good soldier by accident; 
brave as a Pole, which means without sense or dis- 
cernment, and hiding the emptiness of his mind under 
the jargon of good society. After the age of thirty- 
six he was forced to be as absolutely indifferent to the 
fair sex as his master Charles X., punished, like that 
master, for having pleased it too well. For eighteen 
years the idol of the faubourg Saint-Germain, he had, 
like other heirs of great families, led a dissipated life, 
spent solely on pleasure. His father, ruined by the 
revolution, had somewhat recovered his position on 
the return of the Bourbons, as governor of a royal 
domain, with salary and perquisites; but this uncer- 
tain fortune the old prince spent, as it came, in keep- 
ing up the traditions of a great seigneur before the 
revolution; so that when the law of indemnity was 
passed, the sums he received were all swallowed up 
in the luxury he displayed in his vast hotel. 


152 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan, 

The old prince died some little time before the rev- 
olution of July* aged eighty-seven. He had ruined 
his wife, and had long been on bad terms with the 
Due de Navarreins, who had married his daughter for 
a first wife, and to whom he very reluctantly rendered 
his accounts. The Due de Maufrigueuse, early in 
life, had had relations with the Duchesse d’Uxelles. 
About the year 1814, when Monsieur de Maufrigneuse 
was forty-six years of age, the duchess, pitying his 
poverty, and seeing that he stood very well at court, 
gave him her daughter Diane, then in her seventeenth 
year, and possessing, in her own right, some fifty or 
sixty thousand francs a year, not counting her future 
expectations. Mademoiselle d’Uxelles thus became 
a duchess, and, as her mother very well knew, she 
enjoyed the utmost liberty. The duke, after obtain- 
ing the unexpected happiness of an heir, left his wife 
entirely to her own devices, and went off to amuse 
himself in the various garrisons of France, returning 
occasionally to Paris, where he made debts which 
his father paid. He professed the most entire con- 
jugal indulgence, always giving the duchess a week’s 
warning of his return ; he was adored by his regiment, 
beloved by the Dauphin, an adroit courtier, somewhat 
of a gambler, and totally devoid of affectation. Hav- 
ing succeeded to his father’s office as governor of one 
of the royal domains, he managed to please the two 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignctn. 153 

kings, Louis XVIII. and Charles X., which proves he 
made the most of his nonentity ; and even the liberals 
liked him; but his conduct and his life were covered 
with the finest varnish ; language, noble manners, and 
deportment were brought by him to a state of per- 
fection. But, as the old prince said, it was impossible 
for him to continue the traditions of the Cadignans, 
who were all well known to have ruined their wives, 
for the duchess was running through her property on 
her own account. 

.These particulars were so well understood in the 
court circles and in the faubourg Saint-Germain, that 
during the last five years of the Restoration they were 
considered ancient history, and any one who men- 
tioned them would have been laughed at. Women 
never spoke of the charming duke without praising 
him; he was excellent, they said, to his wife; could 
a man be better? He had left her the entire disposal 
of her own property, and had always defended her on 
every occasion. It is true that, whether from pride, 
kindliness, or chivalry, Monsieur de Maufrigneuse 
had saved the duchess under various circumstances 
which might have ruined other women, in spite of 
Diane’s surroundings, and the influence of her mother 
and that of the Due de Navarreins, her father-in-law, 
and her husband’s aunt. 

For several ensuing days the princess revealed her- 


154 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan, 

self to d’Arthez as remarkable for her knowledge of 
literature. She discussed with perfect fearlessness 
the most difficult questions, thanks to her daily and 
nightly reading, pursued with an intrepidity worthy 
of the highest praise. D’Arthez, amazed, and incap- 
able of suspecting that Diane d’Uxelles merely 
repeated at night that which she read in the morning 
(as some writers do), regarded her as a most superior 
woman. These conversations, however, led away 
from Diane’s object, and she tried to get back to the 
region of confidences from which d’Arthez had pru- 
dently retired after her coquettish rebuff; but it was 
not as easy as she expected to bring back a man of 
his nature who had once been startled away. 

However, after a month of literary campaigning 
and the finest platonic discourses, d’Arthez grew 
bolder, and arrived every day at three o’clock. He 
retired at six, and returned at nine, to remain until 
midnight, or one in the morning, with the regularity 
of an ardent and impatient lover. The princess was 
always dressed with more or less studied elegance 
at the hour when d’Arthez presented himself. This 
mutual fidelity, the care they each took of their appear- 
ance, in fact, all about them expressed sentiments 
that neither dared avow, for the princess discerned 
very plainly that the great child with whom she had 
to do shrank from the combat as much as she desired 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 155 

it. Nevertheless d’ Arthez put into his mute declara- 
tions a respectful awe which was infinitely pleasing 
to her. Both felt, every day, all the more united 
because nothing acknowledged or definite checked the 
course of their ideas, as occurs between lovers when 
there are formal demands on one side, and sincere or 
coquettish refusals on the other. 

Like all men younger than their actual age, d’ Arthez 
was a prey to those agitating irresolutions which are 
caused by the force of desires and the terror of dis- 
pleasing, — a situation which a young woman does not 
comprehend when she shares it, but which the princess 
had too often deliberately produced not to enjoy its 
pleasures. In fact, Diane enjoyed these delightful 
juvenilities all the more keenly because she knew that 
she could put an end to them at any moment. She 
was like a great artist delighting in the vague, un- 
decided lines of his sketch, knowing well that in a 
moment of inspiration he can complete the master- 
piece still waiting to come to birth. Many a time, 
seeing d’ Arthez on the point of advancing, she enjoyed 
stopping him short, with an imposing air and man- 
ner. She drove back the hidden storms of that still 
young heart, raised them again, and stilled them with 
a look, holding out her hand to be kissed, or saying 
some trifling insignificant words in a tender voice. 

These manoeuvres, planned in cold blood, but 


156 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 

enchantingly executed, carved her image deeper and 
deeper on the soul of that great writer and thinker 
whom she revelled in making childlike, confiding, 
simple, and almost silly beside her. And yet she had 
moments of repulsion against her own act, moments 
in which she could not help admiring the grandeur of 
such simplicity. This game of choicest coquetry 
attached her, insensibly, to her slave. At last, how- 
ever, Diane grew impatient with an Epictetus of love; 
and when she thought she had trained him to the 
utmost credulity, she set to work to tie a thicker 
bandage still over his eyes. 


Secrets of the P vine esse de Cadignan. 157 


IV. 

THE CONFESSION OF A PRETTY WOMAN. 

One evening Daniel found the princess thoughtful, 
one elbow resting on a little table, her beautiful blond 
head bathed in light from the lamp. She was toying 
with a letter which lay on the table-cloth. When 
d’Arthez had seen the paper distinctly, she folded it 
up, and stuck it in her belt. 

“ What is the matter? ” asked d’Arthez ; u you seem 
distressed. ” 

“ I have received a letter from Monsieur de 
Cadignan,” she replied. “ However great the wrongs 
he has done me, I cannot help thinking of his exile 
— without family, without son — from his native land. ” 

These words, said in a soulful voice, betrayed 
angelic sensibility. D’Arthez was deeply moved. 
The curiosity of the lover became, so to speak, a 
psychological and literary curiosity. He wanted to 
know the height that woman had attained, and what 
were the injuries she thus forgave ; he longed to know 
how these women of the world, taxed with frivolity, 
cold-heartedness, and egotism, could be such angels. 


158 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 

Remembering how the princess had already repulsed 
him when he first tried to read that celestial heart, his 
voice, and he himself, trembled as he took the trans- 
parent, slender hand of the beautiful Diane with its 
curving finger-tips, and said. — 

“Are we now such friends that you will tell me 
what you have suffered ? ” 

“Yes,” she said, breathing forth the syllable like 
the most mellifluous note that Tulou’s flute had ever 
sighed. 

Then she fell into a revery, and her eyes were 
veiled. Daniel remained in a state of anxious expec- 
tation, impressed with the solemnity of the occasion. 
His poetic imagination made him see, as it were, 
clouds slowly dispersing and disclosing to him the 
sanctuary where the wounded lamb was kneeling at 
the divine feet. 

“Well?” he said, in a soft, still voice. 

Diane looked at the tender petitioner; then she 
lowered her eyes slowly, dropping their lids with a 
movement of noble modesty. None but a monster 
would have been capable of imagining hypocrisy in 
the graceful undulation of the neck with which the 
princess again lifted her charming head, to look once 
more into the eager eyes of that great man. 

“ Can I? ought I? ” she murmured, with a gesture of 
hesitation, gazing at d’Arthez with a sublime expres- 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 159 

sion of dreamy tenderness. “Men have so little faith 
in things of this kind ; they think themselves so little 
bound to be discreet! ” 

44 Ah! if you distrust me, why am I here?” cried 
d’Arthez. 

44 Oh, friend! ” she said, giving to the exclamation 
the grace of an involuntary avowal, 4 4 when a woman 
attaches herself for life, think you she calculates? It 
is not a question of refusal (how could I refuse you 
anything?), but the idea of what you may think of 
me if I speak. I would willingly confide to you the 
strange position in which I am at my age ; but what 
would you think of a woman who could reveal the 
secret wounds of her married life? Turenne kept his 
word to robbers; do I not owe to my torturers the 
honor of a Turenne?” 

44 Have you passed your word to say nothing? ” 

44 Monsieur de Cadignan did not think it necessary 
to bind me to secrecy — You are asking more than 
my soul! Tyrant! you want me to bury my honor 
itself in your breast,” she said, casting upon d’Arthez 
a look, by which she gave more value to her coming 
confidence than to her personal self. 

44 You must think me a very ordinary man, if you 
fear any evil, no matter what, from me,” he said, 
with ill-concealed bitterness. 

44 Forgive me, friend,” she replied, taking his hand 


160 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 

in hers caressingly, and letting her fingers wander 
gently over it. “I know your worth. You have 
related to me your whole life ; it is noble, it is beau- 
tiful, it is sublime, and worthy of your name; per- 
haps, in return, I owe you mine. But I fear to lower 
myself in your eyes by relating secrets which are not 
wholly mine. How can you believe — you, a man of 
solitude and poesy — the horrors of social life? Ah! 
you little think when you invent your dramas that 
they are far surpassed by those that are played in 
families apparently united. You are wholly ignorant 
of certain gilded sorrows.” 

“ I know all! ” he cried. 

“ No, you know nothing.” 

D’Arthez felt like a man lost on the Alps of a 
dark night, who sees, at the first gleams of dawn, a 
precipice at his feet. He looked at the princess with 
a bewildered air, and felt a cold chill running down 
his back. Diane thought for a moment that her man 
of genius was a weakling, but a flash from his eyes 
reassured her. 

“You have become to me almost my judge,” she 
said, with a desperate air. “ I must speak now, in 
virtue of the right that all calumniated beings have 
to show their innocence. I have been, I am still (if 
a poor recluse forced by the world to renounce the 
world is still remembered) accused of such light con- 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 161 

duct, and so many evil things, that it may be allowed 
me to find in one strong heart a haven from which I 
cannot be driven. Hitherto I have always considered 
self-justification an insult to innocence; and that is 
why I have disdained to defend myself. Besides, to 
whom could I appeal? Such cruel things can be 
confided to none but God or to one who seems to 
us very near Him — a priest, or another self. 
Well! I do know this, if my secrets are not as safe 
there,” she said, laying her hand on d’Arthez’s heart, 
44 as they are here” (pressing the upper end of her 
busk beneath her fingers), 44 then you are not the grand 
d’Arthez I think you — I shall have been deceived.” 

A tear moistened d’Arthez’s eyes, and Diane drank 
it in with a side look, which, however, gave no motion 
either to the pupils or the lids of her eyes. It was 
quick and neat, like the action of a cat pouncing on 
a mouse. 

D’Arthez, for the first time, after sixty days of 
protocols, ventured to take that warm and perfumed 
hand, and press it to his lips with a long-drawn kiss, 
extending from the wrist to the tip of the fingers, 
which made the princess augur well of literature. 
She thought to herself that men of genius must know 
how to love with more perfection than conceited fops, 
men of the world, diplomatists, and even soldiers, 
although such beings have nothing else to do. She 


11 


\ 


162 Secrets of the Princes se de Cadignan. 

was a connoisseur, and knew very well that the 
capacity for love reveals itself chiefly in mere noth- 
ings. A woman well informed in such matters can 
read her future in a simple gesture; just as Cuvier 
could say from the fragment of a bone : This belonged 
to an animal of such or such dimensions, with or 
without horns, carnivorous, herbivorous, amphibious, 
etc., age, so many thousand years. Sure now of 
finding in d’Arthez as much imagination in love as 
there was in his written style, she thought it wise to 
bring him up at once to the highest pitch of passion, 
and belief. 

She withdrew her hand hastily, with a magnificent 
movement full of varied emotions. If she had said 
in words: “ Stop, or I shall die,” she could not have 
spoken more plainly. She remained for a moment with 
her eyes in d’Arthez ’s eyes, expressing in that one 
glance happiness, prudery, fear, confidence, languor, a 
vague longing, and virgin modesty. She was twenty 
years old! but remember, she had prepared for this 
hour of comic falsehood by the choicest art of dress ; 
she was there in her armchair like a flower, ready to 
blossom at the first kiss of sunshine. True or false, 
she intoxicated Daniel. 

If it is permissible to risk a personal opinion we 
must avow that it would be delightful to be thus de- 
ceived for a good long time. Certainly Talma on the 


Secrets of the P vine esse de Cadignan. 163 

stage was often above and beyond nature, but the 
Princesse de Cadignan is the greatest true comedian 
of our day. Nothing was wanting to this woman but 
an attentive audience. Unfortunately, at epochs per- 
turbed by political storms, women disappear like water- 
lilies which need a cloudless sky and balmy zephyrs 
to spread their bloom to our enraptured eyes. 

The hour had come; Diane was now to entangle 
that great man in the inextricable meshes of a 
romance carefully prepared, to which he was fated to 
listen as the neophyte of early Christian times listened 
to the epistles of an apostle. 

“ My friend,” began Diane, “ my mother, who still 
lives at Uxelles, married me in 1814, when I was 
seventeen years old (you see how old I am now!) to 
Monsieur de Maufrigneuse, not out of affection for 
me, but out of regard for him. She discharged her 
debt to the only man she had ever loved, for the hap- 
piness she had once received from him. Oh! you 
need not be astonished at so horrible a conspiracy ; it 
frequently takes place. Many women are more lovers 
than mothers, though the majority are more mothers 
than wives. The two sentiments, love and mother- 
hood, developed as they are by our manners and cus- 
toms, often struggle together in the hearts of women ; 
one or other must succumb when they are not of equal 
strength; when they are, they produce some excep- 


164 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 

tional women, the glory of our sex. A man of your 
genius must surely comprehend many things that be- 
wilder fools but are none the less true ; indeed I may 
go further and call them justifiable through difference 
of characters, temperaments, attachments, situations. 
I, for example, at this moment, after twenty years of 
misfortunes, of deceptions, of calumnies endured, and 
weary days and hollow pleasures, is it not natural that I 
should incline to fall at the feet of a man who would love 
me sincerely and forever? And yet, the world would 
condemn me. But twenty years of suffering might 
well excuse a few brief years which may still remain to 
me of youth given to a sacred and real love. This will 
not happen. I am not so rash as to sacrifice my hopes 
of heaven. I have borne the burden and heat of the day, 
I shall finish my course and win my recompense.” 

“ Angel! ” thought d’Arthez. 

“ After all, I have never blamed my mother; she 
knew little of me. Mothers who lead a life like that 
of the Duchesse d’Uxelles keep their children at a 
distance. I saw and knew nothing of the world until 
my marriage. You can judge of my innocence! I 
knew nothing ; I was incapable of understanding the 
causes of my marriage. I had a fine fortune ; sixty 
thousand francs a year in forests, which the Revolu- 
tion overlooked (or had not been able to sell) in the 
Nivernais, with the noble chateau of d’Anzy. Mon- 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 165 

sieur de Maufrigneuse was steeped in debt. Later I 
learned what it was to have debts, but then I was too 
utterly ignorant of life to suspect my position; the 
money saved out of my fortune went to pacify my 
husband’s creditors. Monsieur de Maufrigneuse was 
forty-eight years of age when I married him; but 
those years were like military campaigns, they ought 
to count for twice what they were. Ah! what a life 
I led for ten years ! If any one had known the suffer- 
ings of this poor, calumniated little woman! To 
be watched by a mother jealous of her daughter! 
Heavens! You who make dramas, you will never 
invent anything as direful as that. Ordinarily, 
according to the little that I know of literature, 
a drama is a suite of actions, speeches, movements 
which hurry to a catastrophe; but what I speak of 
was a catastrophe in action. It was an avalanche 
fallen in the morning and falling again at night 
only to fall again the next day. I am cold now as I 
speak to you of that cavern without an opening; cold, 
sombre, in which I lived. I, poor little thing that I 
was! brought up in a convent like a mystic rose, 
knowing nothing of marriage, developing late, I was 
happy at first; I enjoyed the goodwill and harmony of 
our family. The birth of my poor boy, who is all 
me — you must have been struck by the likeness? 
my hair, my eyes, the shape of my face, my mouth, 


166 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan . 

my smile, my teeth! — well, his birth was a relief to 
me ; my thoughts were diverted by the first joys of 
maternity from my husband, who gave me no pleasure 
and did nothing for me that was kind or amiable; 
those joys were all the keener because I knew no 
others. It had been so often rung into my ears that 
a mother should respect herself. Besides, a young 
girl loves to play the mother. I was so proud of my 
flower — for Georges was beautiful, a miracle, I 
thought! I saw and thought of nothing but my son, 
I lived with my son. I never let his nurse dress or 
undress him. Such cares, so wearing to mothers who 
have a regiment of children, were all my pleasure. 
But after three or four years, as I was not an actual 
fool, light came to my eyes in spite of the pains 
taken to blindfold me. Can you see me at that 
awakening, in 1819? The drama of 4 The Brothers 
at enmity ’ is a rose-water tragedy beside that of a 
mother and daughter placed as we then were. But I 
braved them all, my mother, my husband, the world, 
by public coquetries which society talked of, — and 
heaven knows how it talked ! You can see, my friend, 
how the men with whom I was accused of folly were 
to me the dagger with which to stab my enemies. 
Thinking only of my vengeance, I did not see or feel 
the wounds I was inflicting on myself. Innocent as 
a child, I was thought a wicked woman, the worst of 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 167 

women, and I knew nothing of it! The world is very 
foolish, very blind, very ignorant; it can penetrate 
no secrets but those which amuse it and serve its 
malice: noble things, great things, it puts its hand 
before its eyes to avoid seeing. But, as I look 
back, it seems to me that I had an attitude and aspect 
of indignant innocence, with movements of pride, 
which a great painter would have recognized. I must 
have enlivened many a ball with my tempests of anger 
and disdain. Lost poesy! such sublime poems are 
only made in the glowing indignation which seizes 
us at twenty. Later, we are wrathful no longer, we 
are too weary, vice no longer amazes us, we are 
cowards, we fear. But then — oh! I kept a great 
pace ! For all that I played the silliest personage in 
the world ; I was charged with crimes by which I never 
benefited. But I had such pleasure in compromising 
myself. That was my revenge ! Ah ! I have played 
many childish tricks ! I went to Italy with a thought- 
less youth, whom I crushed when he spoke to me of 
love, but later, when I heard that he was compromised 
on my account (he had committed a forgery to get 
money) I rushed to save him. My mother and hus- 
band kept me almost without means ; but, this time, 
I went to the king. Louis XVIII., that man with- 
out a heart, was touched; he gave me a hundred 
thousand francs from his privy purse. The Marquis 


168 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 

d’Esgrignon — yon must have seen him in society for 
he ended by making a rich marriage — was saved from 
the abyss into which he had plunged for my sake. 
That adventure, caused by my own folly, led me to 
reflect. I saw that I myself was the first victim of 
my vengeance. My mother, who knew I was too 
proud, too d’Uxelles, to conduct myself really ill, 
began to see the harm that she had done me and was 
frightened by it. She was then fifty-two years of 
age; she left Paris and went to live at Uxelles. 
There she expiates her wrong-doing by a life of devo- 
tion and expresses the utmost affection for me. After 
her departure I was face to face, alone, with Monsieur 
de Maufrigneuse. Oh! my friend, you men can never 
know what an old man of gallantry can be. What a 
home is that of a man accustomed to the adulation of 
women of the world, when he finds neither incense nor 
censer in his own house ! dead to all ! and yet, per- 
haps for that very reason, jealous. I wished — when 
Monsieur de Maufrigneuse was wholly mine — I 
wished to be a good wife , but I found myself repulsed 
with the harshness of a soured spirit by a man who 
treated me like a child and took pleasure in humil- 
iating my self-respect at every turn, in crushing me 
under the scorn of his experience, and in convicting 
me of total ignorance. He wounded me on all occa- 
sions. He did everything to make me detest him 


• Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 169 

and to give me the right to betray him; but I was 
still the dupe of my own hope and of my desire to 
do right through several years. Shall I tell you the 
cruel saying that drove me to further follies? * The 
Duchesse de Maufrigneuse has gone back to her hus- 
band/ said the world. 1 Bah! it is always a triumph 
to bring the dead to life; it is all she can now 
do,’ replied my best friend, a relation, she, at whose 
house I met you — ” 

“ Madame d’Espard ! ” cried Daniel, with a gesture 
of horror. 

“ Oh ! I have forgiven her. Besides, it was very 
witty; and I have myself made just as cruel epigrams 
on other poor women as innocent as myself.” 

D’Arthez again kissed the hand of that saintly 
woman who, having hacked her mother in pieces, and 
turned the Prince de Cadignan into an Othello, now 
proceeded to accuse herself in order to appear in the 
eyes of that innocent great man as immaculate as the 
silliest or the wisest of women desire to seem at all 
costs to their lovers. 

“ You will readily understand, my friend, that I 
returned to society for the purpose of excitement and 
I may say of notoriety. I felt that I must conquer 
my independence. I led a life of dissipation. To 
divert my mind, to forget my real life in fictitious 
enjoyments I was gay, I shone, I gave fetes, I played 


170 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 

the princess, and I ran in debt. At home I could 
forget myself in the sleep of weariness, able to 
rise the next day gay, and frivolous for the world ; 
but in that sad struggle to escape my real life I 
wasted my fortune. The revolution of 1830 came; 
it came at the very moment when I had met, at the 
end of that Arabian Nights’ life, a pure and sacred 
love which (I desire to be honest) I had longed to 
know. Was it not natural in a woman whose heart, 
repressed by many causes and accidents, was awaken- 
ing at an age when a woman feels herself cheated if 
she has never known, like the women she sees about 
her, a happy love? Ah! why was Michel Chrestien 
so respectful? Why did he not seek to meet me? 
There again was another mockery! But what of that? 
in falling, I have lost everything; I have no illusions 
left; I had tasted of all things except the one fruit for 
which I have no longer teeth. Yes, I found myself 
disenchanted with the world at the very moment when 
I was forced to leave it. Providential, was it not? 
like all those strange insensibilities which prepare us 
for death” (she made a gesture full of pious unction). 
“ All things served me then,” she continued the dis- 
asters of the monarchy and its ruin helped me to bury 
myself. My son consoles me for much. Maternal 
love takes the place of all frustrated feelings. The 
world is surprised at my retirement, but to me it 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 171 

has brought peace. Ah ! if you knew how happy the 
poor creature before you is in this little place. In 
sacrificing all to my son I forget to think of joys of 
which I am and ever must be ignorant. Yes, hope has 
flown, I now fear everything ; no doubt I should repulse 
the truest sentiment, the purest and most veritable 
love, in memory of the deceptions and the miseries of 
my life. It is all horrible, is it not? and yet, what I 
have told you is the history of many women.” 

The last few words were said in a tone of easy 
pleasantry which recalled the presence of the woman 
of the world. D’Arthez was dumbfounded. In his 
eyes convicts sent to the galleys for murder, or aggra- 
vated robbery, or for putting a wrong name to checks, 
were saints compared to the men and women of society. 
This atrocious elegy, forged in the arsenal of lies, and 
steeped in the waters of the Parisian Styx, had been 
poured into his ears with the inimitable accent of 
truth. The grave author contemplated for a moment 
that adorable woman lying back in her easy-chair, her 
two hands pendant from its arms like dewdrops from 
a rose-leaf, overcome by her own revelation, living 
over again the sorrows of her life as she told them — 
in short an angel of melancholy. 

“ And judge,” she cried, suddenly lifting herself 
with a spring and raising her hand, while lightning 
flashed from eyes where twenty chaste years shone — 


172 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 

“ judge of the impression the love of a man like Michel 
must have made upon me. But by some irony of 
fate — or was it the hand of God? — well, he died; 
died in saving the life of, whom do you suppose? 
of Monsieur de Cadignan. Are you now surprised to 
find me thoughtful?” 

This was the last drop; poor d’Arthez could bear 
no more. He fell upon his knees, and laid his head 
on Diane’s hand, weeping soft tears such as the angels 
shed, — if angels weep. As Daniel was in that bent 
posture, Madame de Cadignan could safely let a 
malicious smile of triumph flicker on her lips, a 
smile such as the monkeys wear after playing a sly 
trick — if monkeys smile. 

“ Ah! I have him,” thought she; and, indeed, she 
had him fast. 

“ But you are — ” he said, raising his fine head and 
looking at her with eyes of love. 

“ Virgin and martyr,” she replied, smiling at the 
commonness of that hackneyed expression, but giv- 
ing it a freshness of meaning by her smile, so full of 
painful gayety. “ If I laugh,” she continued, “ it is 
that I am thinking of that princess whom the world 
thinks it knows, that Duchesse de Maufrigneuse to 
whom it gives as lovers de Marsay, that infamous de 
Trailles (a political cutthroat), and that little fool of 
a d’Esgrignon, and Bastignac, Rubempre, ambassa- 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 173 

dors, ministers, Russian generals, heaven knows who! 
all Europe! They have gossiped about that album 
which I ordered made, believing that those who ad- 
mired me were my friends. Ah ! it is frightful ! I 
wonder that I allow a man at my feet ! Despise them 
all, that should be my religion. ” 

She rose and went to the window with a gait and 
bearing magnificent in motifs . 

D’Arthez remained on the low seat to which he had 
returned not daring to follow the princess; but he 
looked at her; he heard her blowing her nose. Was 
there ever a princess who blew her nose? but Diane 
attempted the impossible to convey an idea of her 
sensibility. D’Arthez believed his angel was in 
tears ; he rushed to her side, took her round the waist, 
and pressed her to his heart. 

“No, no, leave me ! ” she murmured in a feeble 
voice. “I have too many doubts to be good for any- 
thing. To reconcile me with life is a task beyond 
the powers of any man.” 

“Diane ! I will love you for your whole lost life.” 

“No; don’t speak to me thus,” she answered. “At 
this moment I tremble, I am ashamed as though I had 
committed the greatest sins.” 

She was now entirely restored to the innocence of 
little girls, and yet her bearing was august, grand, 
noble as that of a queen. It is impossible to describe 
the effect of these manoeuvres, so clever that they 


174 Secrets of the P vine esse de Cadignan. 

acted like the purest truth on a soul as fresh and 
honest as that of d’Arthez. The great author re- 
mained dumb with admiration, passive beside her in 
the recess of that window awaiting a word, while the 
princess awaited a kiss; but she was far too sacred to 
him for that. Feeling cold, the princess returned to 
her easy-chair; her feet were frozen. 

“It will take a long time,” she said to herself, 
looking at Daniel’s noble brow and head. 

“Is this a woman?” thought that profound observer 
of human nature. “How ought I to treat her? ” 

Until two o’clock in the morning they spent their 
time in saying to each other the silly things that 
women of genius, like the princess, know how to make 
adorable. Diane pretended to be too worn, too old, 
too faded; D’Arthez proved to her (facts of which 
she was well convinced) that her skin was the most 
delicate, the softest to the touch, the whitest to the 
eye, the most fragrant; she was young and in her 
bloom, how could she think otherwise? Thus they 
disputed, beauty by beauty, detail by detail with 
many: “Oh! do you think so?” — “You are 
beside yourself!” — “It is hope, it is fancy!” — 
“You will soon see me as I am. — I am almost forty 
years of age. Can a man love so old a woman?” 

D’Arthez responded with impetuous and school-boy 
eloquence, larded with exaggerated epithets. When 
the princess heard this wise and witty writer talking 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 175 

the nonsense of an amorous sub-lieutenant she listened 
with an absorbed air and much sensibility; but she 
laughed in her sleeve. 

When d’Arthez was in the street, he asked himself 
whether he might not have been rather less respectful. 
He went over in memory those strange confidences — 
which have, naturally, been much abridged here, for 
they needed a volume to convey their mellifluous abun- 
dance and the graces which accompanied them. The 
retrospective perspicacity of this man, so natural, so 
profound, was baffled by the candor of that tale and 
its poignancy, and by the tones of the princess. 

“It is true,” he said to himself, being unable to 
sleep, “there are such dramas as that in society. 
Society covers great horrors with the flowers of its 
elegance, the embroidery of its gossip, the wit of its 
lies. We writers invent no more than the truth. 
Poor Diane! Michel had penetrated that enigma; he 
said that beneath her covering of ice there lay vol- 
canoes! Bianchon and Rastignac were right; when a 
man can join the grandeurs of the ideal and the 
enjoyments of human passion in loving a woman of 
perfect manners, of intellect, of delicacy, it must be 
happiness beyond words.” 

So thinking, he sounded the love that was in him 
and found it infinite. 


176 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 


V. 

A TRIAL OF FAITH. 

The next day, about two in the afternoon, Madame 
d’Espard, who had seen and heard nothing of the 
princess for more than a month, went to see her under 
the impulse of extreme curiosity. Nothing was ever 
more amusing of its kind than the conversation of 
these two crafty adders during the first half-hour of 
this visit. 

Diane d’Uxelles cautiously avoided, as she would 
the wearing of a yellow gown, all mention of d’Arthez. 
The marquise circled round and round that topic like 
a Bedouin round a caravan. Diane amused herself ; 
the- marquise fumed. Diane waited ; she intended to 
utilize her friend and use her in the chase. Of these 
two women, both so celebrated in the social world, 
one was far stronger than the other. The princess 
rose by a head above the marquise, and the marquise 
was inwardly conscious of that superiority. In this, 
perhaps, lay the secret of their intimacy. The weaker 
of the two crouched low in her false attachment, 
watching for the hour, long awaited by feeble beings, 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 177 

of springing at the throat of the stronger and leaving 
the mark of a joyful bite. Diane saw clear; but the 
world was the dupe of the wily caresses of the two 
friends. 

The instant that the princess perceived a direct 
question on the lips of her friend, she said: — 

“Ah ! dearest, I owe you a most complete, immense, 
infinite, celestial happiness.” 

“What can you mean?” 

“Have you forgotten what we ruminated three 
months ago in the little garden, sitting on a bench in 
the sun, under the jasmine? Ah! there are none but 
men of genius who know how to love ! I apply to my 
grand Daniel d’Arthez the Duke of Alba’s saying to 
Catherine de’ Medici: 4 The head of a single salmon is 
worth all the frogs in the world. ’ ” 

“lam not surprised that I no longer see you,” said 
Madame d’Espard. 

“Promise me, if you meet him, not to say to him one 
word about me, my angel,” said the princess, taking 
her friend’s hand. 44 1 am happy, oh! happy beyond 
all expression ; but you know that in society a word, 
a mere jest can do such harm. One speech can kill, 
for they put such venom into a single sentence ! Ah ! 
if you knew how I long that you might meet with a 
love like this ! Yes, it is a sweet, a precious triumph 
for women like ourselves to end our woman’s life in 

12 


178 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan . 

this way; to rest in an ardent, pure, devoted, com- 
plete and absolute love; above all, when we have 
sought it long.’’ 

“Why do you ask me to be faithful to my dearest 
friend?” said Madame d’Espard. “Do you think me 
capable of playing you some villanous trick ? ” 

“When a woman possesses such a treasure the fear 
of losing it is so strong that it naturally inspires a 
feeling of terror. I am absurd, I know ; forgive me, 
dear.” 

A few moments later the marquise departed; as 
she watched her go the princess said to herself : — 

“How she will pluck me ! But to save her the 
trouble of trying to get Daniel away from here I ’ll 
send him to her.” 

At three o’clock, or a few moments after, d’Arthez 
arrived. In the midst of some interesting topic on 
which he was discoursing eloquently, the princess 
suddenly cut him short by laying her hand on his 
arm. 

“Pardon me, my dear friend,” she said, interrupt- 
ing him, “but I fear I may forget a thing which seems 
a mere trifle but may be of great importance. You 
have not set foot in Madame d’Espard’s salon since 
the ever-blessed day when I met you there. Pray go 
at once ; not for your sake, nor by way of politeness, 
but for me. You may already have made her an enemy 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 179 

of mine, if by chance she has discovered that since 
her dinner you have scarcely left my house. Besides, 
my friend, I don’t like to see you dropping your con- 
nection with society, and neglecting your occupations 
and your work. I should again be strangely calum- 
niated. What would the world say ? That I held you 
in leading-strings, absorbed you, feared comparisons, 
and clung to my conquest knowing it to be my last ! 
Who will know that you are my friend, my only friend ? 
If you love me indeed, as you say you love me, you 
will make the world believe that we are purely and 
simply brother and sister — Go on with what you 
were saying.” 

In his armor of tenderness, riveted by the knowl- 
edge of so many splendid virtues, d’Arthez obeyed 
this behest on the following day and went to see 
Madame d’Espard, who received him with charming 
coquetry. The marquise took very good care not to 
say a single word to him about the princess, but she 
asked him to dinner on a coming day. 

On this occasion D’Arthez found a numerous com- 
pany. The marquise had invited Rastignac, Blondet, 
the Marquis d’Ajuda-Pinto, Maxime de Trailles, the 
Marquis d’Esgrignon, the two brothers Yandenesse, 
du Tillet, one of the richest bankers in Paris, the Baron 
de Nucingen, Raoul Nathan, Lady Dudley, two very 
treacherous secretaries of embassies and the Chevalier 


180 Secrets of the Princes se de Cadignan. 

d’Espard, the wiliest personage in this assemblage 
and the chief instigator of his sister-in-law’s policy. 

When dinner was well under way, Maxime de Trailles 
turned to d’Arthez and said smiling: — 

“You see a great deal, don’t you, of the Princesse 
de Cadignan ? ” 

To this question d’Arthez responded by curtly nod- 
ding his head. Maxime de Trailles was a bravo of 
the social order, without faith or law, capable of 
everything, ruining the women who trusted him, com- 
pelling them to pawn their diamonds to give him 
money, but covering this conduct with a brilliant var- 
nish; a man of charming manners and satanic mind. 
He inspired all who knew him with equal contempt 
and fear ; but as no one was bold enough to show h'im 
any sentiments but those of the utmost courtesy he 
saw nothing of this public opinion, or else he accepted 
and shared the general dissimulation. He owed to 
the Comte de Marsay the greatest degree of elevation 
to which he could attain. De Marsay, whose knowl- 
edge of Maxime was of long-standing, judged him 
capable of fulfilling certain secret and diplomatic 
functions which he confided to him and of which 
de Trailles acquitted himself admirably. D’Arthez 
had for some time past mingled sufficiently in politi- 
cal matters to know the man for what he was, and he 
alone had sufficient strength and height of character 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 181 

to express aloud what others thought or said in a 
whisper. 

“Is it for her that you neglect the Chamber? ” asked 
Baron de Nucingen in his German accent. 

“Ah ! the princess is one of the most dangerous 
women a man can have anything to do with. I owe 
to her the miseries of my marriage,” exclaimed the 
Marquis d’Esgrignon. 

“Dangerous?” said Madame d’Espard. “Don’t 
speak so of my nearest friend. I have never seen or 
known anything in the princess that did not seem to 
come from the noblest sentiments.” 

“Let the marquis say what he thinks,” cried Ras- 
tignac. “When a man has been thrown by a fine 
horse he thinks it has vices and he sells it.” 

Piqued by these words, the Marquis d’Esgrignon 
looked at d’Arthez and said: — 

“Monsieur is not, I trust, on such terms with the 
princess that we cannot speak freely of her? ” 

D’Arthez kept silence. D’Esgrignon, who was not 
wanting in cleverness, replied to Rastignac’s speech 
with an apologetic portrait of the princess, which 
put the whole table in good humor. As the jest was 
extremely obscure to d’Arthez he leaned toward his 
neighbor, Madame de Montcornet, and asked her, in a 
whisper, what it meant. 

“Excepting yourself — judging by the excellent 


182 Secrets of the P vine esse de Cadignan. 

opinion you seem to have of the princess — all the 
other guests are said to have been in her good graces.” 

“I can assure you that such an accusation is abso- 
lutely false,” said Daniel. 

“And yet, here is Monsieur d’Esgrignon of an old 
family of Alen$on, who completely ruined himself for 
her some twelve years ago, and, if all is true, came 
very near going to the scaffold.” 

“I know the particulars of that affair,” said d’Arthez. 
“Madame de Cadignan went to Alengon to save Mon- 
sieur d’Esgrignon from a trial before the court of 
assizes; and this is how he rewards her to-day!” 

Madame de Montcornet looked at d’Arthez with a 
surprise and curiosity that were almost stupid, then 
she turned her eyes on Madame d’Espard with a look 
which seemed to say: “He is bewitched ! ” 

During this short conversation Madame de Cadignan 
was protected by Madame d’Espard, whose protection 
was like that of the lightning-rod which draws the 
flash. When d’Arthkz returned to the general con- 
versation Maxime de Trailles was saying : — 

“With Diane, depravity is not an effect but a 
cause; perhaps she owes that cause to her exquisite 
nature; she doesn’t invent, she makes no effort, 
she offers you the choicest refinements as the inspira- 
tion of a spontaneous and naive love ; and it is abso- 
lutely impossible not to believe her.” 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 183 

This speech, which seemed to have been prepared 
for a man of d’Arthez’s stamp, was so tremendous an 
arraignment that the company appeared to accept it as 
a conclusion. No one said more; the princess was 
crushed. D’Arthez looked straight at de Trailles and 
then at d’Esgrignon with a sarcastic air, and said: — 
“The greatest fault of that woman is that she has 
followed in the wake of men. She squanders patri- 
monies as they do ; she drives her lovers to usurers ; 
she pockets dots ; she ruins orphans ; she inspires, 
possibly she commits, crimes, but — ” 

Never had the two men, whom d’Arthez was chiefly 
addressing, listened to such plain talk. At that but 
the whole table was startled, every one paused, fork 
in air, their eyes fixed alternately on the brave author 
and on the assailants of the princess, awaiting the 
conclusion of that horrible silence. 

“ But ,” said d’Arthez, with sarcastic airiness, 
“Madame la Princesse de Cadignan has one advan- 
tage over men: when they have put themselves in 
danger for her sake, she saves them, and says no harm 
of any one. Among the multitude, why should n’t 
there be one woman who amuses herself with men as 
men amuse themselves with women? Why not allow 
the fair sex to take, from time to time, its revenge?” 

“Genius is stronger than wit,” said Blondet to 
Nathan. 


184 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 

This broadside of sarcasms was in fact the dis- 
charge of a battery of cannon against a platoon of 
musketry. When coffee was served, Blondet and 
Nathan went up to d’Arthez with an eagerness no one 
else dared to imitate, so unable were the rest of the 
company to show the admiration his conduct inspired 
from the fear of making two powerful enemies. 

“This is not the first time we have seen that your 
character equals your talent in grandeur,” said Blondet. 
“You behaved just now more like a demi-god than a 
man. Not to have been carried away by your heart 
or your imagination, not to have taken up the defence 
of a beloved woman — a fault they were enticing you 
to commit, because it would have given those men of 
society eaten up with jealousy of your literary fame 
a triumph over you — ah ! give me leave to say you 
have attained the height of private statesmanship.” 

“Yes, you are a statesman,” said Nathan. “It is 
as clever as it is difficult to avenge a woman without 
defending her.” 

“The princess is one of the heroines of the legit- 
imist party, and it is the duty of all men of honor to 
protect her quand memef replied d’Arthez, coldly. 
“What she has done for the cause of her masters 
would excuse all follies.” 

“He keeps his own counsel!” said Nathan to 
Blondet. 


Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan. 185 

“Precisely as if the princess were worth it,” said 
Rastignac, joining the other two. 

D’Arthez went to the princess, who was awaiting 
him with the keenest anxiety. The result of this 
experiment, which Diane had herself brought about, 
might be fatal to her. For the first time in her life 
this woman suffered in her heart. She knew not what 
she should do in case d’Arthez believed the world 
which spoke the truth, instead of believing her who 
lied ; for never had so noble a nature, so complete a 
man, a soul so pure, a conscience so ingenuous come 
beneath her hand. Though she had told him cruel 
lies she was driven to do so by the desire of knowing 
a true love. That love — she felt it dawning in her 
heart; yes, she loved d’Arthez; and now she was con- 
demned forever to deceive him ! She must henceforth 
remain to him the actress who had played that comedy 
to blind his eyes. 

When she heard Daniel’s step in the dining-room a 
violent commotion, a shudder which reached to her 
very vitals came over her. That convulsion, never 
felt during all the years of her adventurous existence, 
told her that she had staked her happiness on this 
issue. Her eyes, gazing into space, took in the whole 
of d’Arthez’s person; their light poured through his 
flesh, she read his soul ; suspicion had not so much as 
touched him with its bat’s- wing. The terrible emo- 


186 Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignarii 

tion of that fear then came to its reaction; joy almost 
stifled her; for there is no human being who is not 
more able to endure grief than to bear extreme felicity. 

“Daniel, they have calumniated me, and you have 
avenged me ! ” she cried, rising, and opening her arms 
to him. 

In the profound amazement caused by these words, 
the roots of which were utterly unknown to him, Daniel 
allowed his head to be taken between her beautiful 
hands, as the princess kissed him sacredly on the 
forehead. 

“But,” he said, “how could you know — ” 

“Oh! illustrious ninny! do you not see that I love 
you fondly ? ” 

Since that day nothing has been said of the Prin- 
cesse de Cadignan, nor of d’Arthez. The princess 
has inherited some fortune from her mother and she 
spends all her summers in a villa on the lake of 
Geneva, where the great writer joins her. She returns 
to Paris for a few months in winter. D’Arthez is 
never seen except in the Chamber. His writings are 
becoming exceedingly rare. Is this a conclusion? 
Yes, for people of sense; no, for persons who want 
to know everything. 


UNCONSCIOUS COMEDIANS. 



































'm ”, 












































f 
























UNCONSCIOUS COMEDIANS. 


To Monsieur le Comte Jules de Castellane. 


I. 

Leon de Lora, our celebrated landscape painter, 
belongs to one of the noblest families of the Roussillon 
(Spanish originally) which, although distinguished 
for the antiquity of its race, has been doomed for a 
century to the proverbial poverty of hidalgos. Com- 
ing, light-footed, to Paris from the department of the 
Eastern Pyrenees, with the sum of eleven francs in 
his pocket for all viaticum, he had in some degree 
forgotten the miseries and privations of his childhood 
and his family amid the other privations and miseries 
which are never lacking to rapins , whose whole for- 
tune consists of intrepid vocation. Later, the cares 
of fame and those of success were other causes of 
forgetfulness. 


190 


Unconscious Comedians . 


If you have followed the capricious and meandering 
course of these studies, perhaps you will remember 
Mistigris, Schinner’s pupil, one of the heroes of “A 
Start in Life” ( Scenes from Private Life ), and his 
✓brief apparitions in other Scenes. In 1845, this land- 
scape painter, emulator of the Hobbemas, Euysdaels, 
and Lorraines, resembles no longer the shabby, frisky 
rapin whom we then knew. Now an illustrious man, 
he owns a charming house in the rue de Berlin, not 
far from the hotel de Brambourg, where his friend 
Brideau lives, and quite close to the house of Schinner, 
his early master. He is a member of the Institute 
and an officer of the Legion of honor; he is thirty- 
six years old, has an income of twenty thousand 
francs from the Funds, his pictures sell for their 
weight in gold, and (what seems to him more ex- 
traordinary than the invitations he receives occa- 
sionally to court balls) his name and fame, mentioned 
so often for the last sixteen years by the press of 
Europe, has at last penetrated to the valley of the 
Eastern Pyrenees, where vegetate three veritable 
Loras : his father, his eldest brother, and an old pater- 
nal aunt, Mademoiselle Urraca y Lora. 

In the maternal line the painter has no relation left 
except a cousin, the nephew of his mother, residing in 
a small manufacturing town in the department. This 
cousin was the first to bethink himself of Leon. But 


Unconscious Comedians. 


191 


it was not till 1840 that Leon de Lora received a let- 
ter from Monsieur Sylvestre Palafox-Castel-Gazonal 
(called simply Gazonal) to which he replied that he 
was assuredly himself, — that is to say, the son of the 
late Leonie Gazonal, wife of Comte Fernand Didas 
y Lora. 

During the summer of 1841 cousin Sylvestre Gazonal 
went to inform the illustrious unknown family of Lora 
that their little Leon had not gone to the Bio de la 
Plata, as they supposed, but was now one of the 
greatest geniuses of the French school of painting ; a 
fact the family did not believe. The eldest son, Don 
Juan de Lora assured his cousin Gazonal that he was 
certainly the dupe of some Parisian wag. 

Now the said Gazonal was intending to go to Paris 
to prosecute a lawsuit which the prefect of the Eastern 
Pyrenees had arbitrarily removed from the usual juris- 
diction, transferring it to that of the Council of State. 
The worthy provincial determined to investigate this 
act, and to ask his Parisian cousin the reason of such 
high-handed measures. It thus happened that Mon- 
sieur Gazonal came to Paris, took shabby lodgings 
in the rue Croix-des-Petits-Champs, and was amazed 
to see the palace of his cousin in the rue de Berlin. 
Being told that the painter was then travelling in 
Italy, he renounced, for the time being, the intention 
of asking his advice, and doubted if he should ever 


192 


Unconscious Comedians. 


find his maternal relationship acknowledged by so 
great a man. 

During the years 1843 and 1844 Gazonal attended 
to his lawsuit. This suit concerned a question as to 
the current and level of a stream of water and the 
necessity of removing a dam, in which dispute the 
administration, instigated by the abutters on the river 
banks, had meddled. The removal of the dam threat- 
ened the existence of Gazonal’s manufactory. In 
1845, Gazonal considered his cause as wholly lost; 
the secretary of the Master of Petitions, charged with 
the duty of drawing up the report, had confided to 
him that the said report would assuredly be against 
him, and his own lawyer confirmed the statement. 
Gazonal, though commander of the National Guard in 
his own town and one of the most capable manufac- 
turers of the department, found himself of so little 
account in Paris, and he was, moreover, so frightened 
by the costs of living and the dearness of even the 
most trifling things, that he kept himself, all this time, 
secluded in his shabby lodgings. The Southerner, 
deprived of his sun, execrated Paris, which he called 
a manufactory of rheumatism. As he added up the 
costs of his suit and his living, he vowed within him- 
self to poison the prefect on his return, or to minotau- 
rize him. In his moments of deepest sadness he 
killed the prefect outright; in gayer mood he con- 
tented himself with minotaurizing him. 


Unconscious Comedians. 


193 


One morning, as he ate his breakfast and cursed 
his fate, he picked up a newspaper savagely. The 
following lines, ending an article, struck Gazonal 
as if the mysterious voice which speaks to gamblers 
before they win had sounded in his ear: “Our cele- 
brated landscape painter, Leon de Lora, lately re- 
turned from Italy, will exhibit several pictures at the 
Salon; thus the exhibition promises, as we see, to be 
most brilliant.” With the suddenness of action that 
distinguishes the sons of the sunny South, Gazonal 
sprang from his lodgings to the street, from the street 
to a street-cab, and drove to the rue de Berlin to find 
his cousin. 

Leon de Lora sent word by a servant to his cousin 
Gazonal that he invited him to breakfast the next 
day at the Cafe de Paris, but he was now engaged in 
a manner which did not allow him to receive his 
cousin at the present moment. Gazonal, like a true 
Southerner, recounted all his troubles to the valet. 

The next day at ten o’clock, Gazonal, much too 
well-dressed for the occasion (he had put on his bottle- 
blue coat with brass buttons, a frilled shirt, a white 
waistcoat and yellow gloves), awaited his amphitryon 
a full hour, stamping his feet on the boulevard, after 
hearing from the master of the cafe that “these gentle- 
men ” breakfasted habitually between eleven and twelve 
o’clock. 


13 


194 


Unconscious Comedians. 


“Between eleven and half-past,” he said when he 
related his adventures to his cronies in the provinces, 
“two Parisians in simple frock-coats, looking like 
nothing at all , called out when they saw me on the 
boulevard, 4 There ’s our Gazonal! ’ ” 

The speaker was Bixiou, with whom Leon de Lora 
had armed himself to “bring out” his provincial 
cousin, in other words, to make him pose. 

“ ‘ Don’t be vexed, cousin, I ’m at your service! * 
cried out that little Leon, taking me in his arms,” 
related Gazonal on his return home. “The break- 
fast was splendid. I thought I was going blind when 
I saw the number of bits of gold it took to pay that 
bill. Those fellows must earn their weight in gold, 
for I saw my cousin give the waiter thirty sous — the 
price of a whole day’s work! ” 

During this monstrous breakfast — advisedly so 
called in view of six dozen Ostend oysters, six cutlets 
a la Soubise, a chicken a la Marengo, lobster mayon- 
naise, green peas, a mushroom pasty, washed down 
with three bottles of Bordeaux, three bottles of Cham- 
pagne, plus coffee and liqueurs, to say nothing of 
relishes — Gazonal was magnificent in his diatribes 
against Paris. The worthy manufacturer complained 
of the length of the four-pound bread-loaves, the 
height of the houses, the indifference of the passen- 
gers in the streets to one another, the cold, the rain, 


Unconscious Comedians. 


195 


the cost of hackney-coaches, all of which and much 
else he bemoaned in so witty a manner that the two 
artists took a mighty fancy to cousin Gazonal, and 
made him relate his lawsuit from beginning to end. 

“My lawsuit,” he said in his Southern accent and 
rolling his r’s, “ is a very simple thing; they want my 
manufactory. I ’ve employed here in Paris a dolt of 
a lawyer, to whom I give twenty francs every time he 
opens an eye, and he is always asleep. He *s a slug, 
who drives in his coach, while I go afoot and he 
splashes me. I see now I ought to have had a 
carriage. Nobody is looked at unless he is hidden 
in a carriage! On the other hand, that Council of 
State are a pack of do-nothings, who leave their 
duties to little scamps every one of whom is bought 
up by our prefect. That’s my lawsuit! They want 
my manufactory ! Well, they ’ll get it ! and they must 
manage the best they can with my workmen, a hun- 
dred of ’em, who ’ll make them sing another tune 
before they’ve done with them.” 

“How long have you been here, cousin?” asked 
Leon de Lora. 

“ Two years. Ha! that meddling prefect! he shall 
pay dear for this ; I ’ll have his life if I have to give 
mine on the scaffold — ” 

“Which state councillor presides over your section? ” 

“A former newspaper man, — does n’t pay ten sous 
in taxes, — his name is Massol.” 


196 


Unconscious Comedians. 


The two Parisians exchanged glances. 

“ Who is the commissioner who is making the 
report? ” 

“Ha! that’s still more queer; he’s Master of 
Petitions, professor of something or other at the 
Sorbonne, — a fellow who writes things in reviews, 
and for whom I. have the profound est contempt.” 

“ Claude Vignon,” said Bixiou. 

“ Yes, that’s his name,” replied Gfazonal. “ Massol 
and Vignon — there you have Social Reason, in which 
there ’s no reason at all.” 

“ There must be some way out of it,” said Leon de 
Lora. “You see, cousin, all things are possible in 
Paris for good as well as for evil, for the just as well 
as the unjust. There ’s nothing that can’t be done, 
undone, and redone.” 

“The devil take me if I stay ten days more in this 
hole of a place, the dullest in all France ! ” 

The two cousins and Bixiou were at this moment 
walking from one end to the other of that sheet of 
asphalt on which, between the hours of one and three, 
it is difficult to avoid seeing some of the personages 
in honor of whom Fame puts - one or other of her 
trumpets to her lips. Formerly that locality was the 
Place Roy ale; next it was the Pont Neuf; in these 
days this privilege has been acquired by the Boulevard 
t des Italiens. 


Unconscious Comedians. 


197 


“Paris,” said the painter to his cousin, “ is an in- 
strument on which we must know how to play ; if we 
stand here ten minutes I ’ll give you your first lesson. 
There, look ! ” he said, raising his cane and port- 
ing to a couple who were just then coming out from 
the Passage de 1’ Opera. 

“ Goodness ! who ’s that? ” asked Gazonal. 

That was an old woman, in a bonnet which had 
spent six months in a show-case, a very pretentious 
gown and a faded tartan shawl, whose face had been 
buried twenty years of her life in a damp lodge, and 
whose swollen hand-bag betokened no better social 
position than that of an ex-portress. With her was 
a slim little girl, whose eyes, fringed with black 
lashes, had lost their innocence and showed great 
weariness ; her face, of a pretty shape, was fresh and 
her hair abundant, her forehead charming but auda- 
cious, her bust thin, — in other words, an unripe fruit. 

“ That,” replied Bixiou, “is a rat tied to its mother.” 

“ A rat! — what ’s that? ” 

“That particular rat,” said Leon, with a friendly 
nod to Mademoiselle Ninette, “ may perhaps win your 
suit for you.” 

Gazonal bounded ; but Bixiou had held him by the 
arm ever since they left the cafe, thinking perhaps 
that the flush on his face was rather vivid. 

“ That rat, who is just leaving a rehearsal at the 


198 


Unconscious Comedians. 


Opera-house, is going home to eat a miserable dinner, 
and will return about three o’clock to dress, if she 
dances in the ballet this evening — as she will, to-day 
being Monday. This rat is already an old rat for she 
is thirteen years of age. Two years from now that 
creature may be worth sixty thousand francs ; she will 
be all or nothing, a great danSeuse or a marclieuse , a 
celebrated person or a vulgar courtesan. She has 
worked hard since she was eight years old. Such as 
you see her, she is worn out with fatigue; she ex- 
hausted her body this morning in the dancing-class, 
she is just leaving a rehearsal where the evolutions 
are as complicated as a Chinese puzzle ; and she T1 go 
through them again to-night. The rat is one of the 
primary elements of the Opera; she is to the leading 
danseuse what a junior clerk is to a notary. The rat 
is — hope.” 

“ Who produces the rat? ” asked Gazonal. 

“Porters, paupers, actors, dancers,” replied Bixiou. 
“ Only the lowest depths of poverty could force a 
child to subject her feet and joints to positive torture, 
to keep herself virtuous out of mere speculation until 
she is eighteen years of age, and to live with some 
horrible old crone like a beautiful plant in a dressing 
of manure. You shall now see a procession defiling 
before you, one after the other, of men of talent, 
little and great, artists in seed or flower, who are' rais- 


Unconscious Comedians. 


199 


ing to the glory of France that every-day monument 
called the Opera, an assemblage of forces, wills, and 
forms of genius, nowhere collected as in Paris. ” 

“ I have already seen the Opera,” saidGazonal, with 
a self-sufficient air. 

“Yes, from a three-francs-sixty-sous seat among 
the gods,” replied the landscape painter; “just as you 
have seen Paris in the rue Croix-des-Petits-Champs, 
without knowing anything about it. What did they 
give at the Opera when you were there? ” 

“ Guillaume Tell.” 

“Well,” said Leon, “Matilde’s grand duo must 
have delighted you. What do you suppose that 
charming singer did when she left the stage?” 

“ She — well, what? ” 

“ She ate two bloody mutton-chops which her ser- 
vant had ready for her.” 

“ Pooh ! nonsense ! ” 

“ Malibran kept up on brandy — but it killed her in 
the end. Another thing ! You have seen the ballet, 
and you T1 now see it defiling past you in its every-day 
clothes, without knowing that the fate of your lawsuit 
depends on a pair of those legs.” 

“ My lawsuit ! ” 

“ See, cousin, here comes what is called a marcheuse 

Leon pointed to one of those handsome creatures 
who at twenty-five years of age have lived sixty, and 


200 


Unconscious Comedians. 


whose beauty is so real and so sure of being culti- 
vated that they make no display of it. She was tall, 
and walked well, with the arrogant look of a dand} 7 ; 
her toilet was remarkable for its ruinous simplicity. 

“ That is Carabine, ” said Bixiou, who gave her, as 
did Leon, a slight nod to which she responded by a 
smile. 

“ There ’s another who may possibly get your prefect 
turned out.” 

“ A marcheuse ! — but what is that? ” 

“A marcheuse is a rat of great beauty whom 
her mother, real or fictitious, has sold as soon as it 
was clear she would become neither first, second, nor 
third danseuse , but who prefers the occupation of 
coryjphee to any other, for the main reason that hav- 
ing spent her youth in that employment she is unfitted 
for any other. She has been rejected at the minor 
theatres where they want danseuses ; she has not suc- 
ceeded in the three towns in the provinces where 
ballets are given ; she has not had the money, or per- 
haps the desire to go to foreign countries — for per- 
haps you don’t know that the great school of dancing 
in Paris supplies the whole world with male and female 
dancers. Thus a rat who becomes a marcheuse , — that 
is to say, an ordinary figurante in a ballet, — must have 
some solid attachment which keeps her in Paris : either 
a rich man she does not love or a poor man she loves 


Unconscious Comedians. 


201 


too well. The one you have just seen pass will prob- 
ably dress and redress three times this evening, — as 
a princess, a peasant-girl, a Tyrolese; by which she 
will earn about two hundred francs a month.” 

“ She is better dressed than my prefect’s wife.” 

“ If you should go to her house,” said Bixiou, “ you 
would find there a chamber-maid, a cook, and a man- 
servant. She occupies a fine apartment in the rue 
Saint-G-eorges ; in short, she is, in proportion to French 
fortunes of the present day compared with those of 
former times, a relic of the eighteenth century 4 opera- 
girl.’ Carabine is a power; at this moment she 
governs du Tillet, a banker who is very influential in 
the Chamber of Deputies.” 

44 And above these two. rounds in the ballet ladder 
what comes next?” asked Gazonal. 

44 Look ! ” said his cousin, pointing to an elegant 
caleche which was turning at that moment from the 
boulevard into the rue Grange-Bateliere, 44 there’s one 
of the leading danseuses whose name on the posters 
attracts all Paris. That woman earns sixty thousand 
francs a year and lives like a princess ; the price of 
your manufactory all told would n’t suffice to buy you 
the privilege of bidding her good-morning a dozen 
times.” 

44 Do you see,” said Bixiou, “that young man who 
is sitting on the front seat of her carriage? Well, 


202 


Unconscious Comedians. 


be ’s a viscount who bears a fine old name; he ’s her 
first gentleman of the bed-chamber ; does all her busi- 
ness with the newspapers ; carries messages of peace 
or war in the morning to the director of the Opera; 
and takes charge of the applause which salutes her as 
she enters or leaves the stage.” 

“Well, well, my good friends, that’s the finishing 
touch ! I see now that I knew nothing of the ways of 
Paris.” 

“ At any rate, you are learning what you can see in 
ten minutes in the Passage de 1’ Opera,” said Bixiou. 
“ Look there.” 

Two persons, a man and a woman, came out of the 
Passage at that moment. The woman was neither 
plain nor pretty ; but her dress had that distinction of 
style and cut and color which reveals an artist; the 
man had the air of a singer. 

“There,” said Bixiou, “ is a baritone and a second 
danseuse. The baritone is a man of immense talent, 
but a baritone voice being only an accessory to the 
other parts he scarcely earns what the second danseuse 
earns. The danseuse , who was celebrated before 
Taglioni and Ellsler appeared, has preserved to our 
day some of the old traditions of the character dance 
and pantomime. If the two others had not revealed 
in the art of dancing a poetry hitherto unperceived, 
she would have been the leading talent; as it is, she 


Unconscious Comedians. 


203 


is reduced to the second line. But for all that, she 
fingers her thirty thousand francs a year, and her 
faithful friend is a peer of France, very influential in 
the Chamber. And see ! there ’s a danseuse of the 
third order, who, as a dancer, exists only through the 
omnipotence of a newspaper. If her engagement were 
not renewed the ministry would have one more jour- 
nalistic enemy on its back. The corps de ballet is a 
great power ; consequently it is considered better form 
in the upper ranks of dandyism and politics to have 
relations with dance than with song. In the stalls, 
where the habitues of the Opera congregate, the say- 
ing 4 Monsieur is all for singing ’ is a form of 
ridicule. ” 

A short man with a common face, quite simply 
dressed, passed them at this moment. 

“There’s the other half of the Opera receipts — 
that man who just went by ; the tenor. There is no 
longer any play, poem, music, or representation of any 
kind possible unless some celebrated tenor can reach 
a certain note. The tenor is love, he is the Voice that 
touches the heart, that vibrates in the soul, and his 
value is reckoned at a much higher salary than that 
of a minister. One hundred thousand francs for -a 
throat, one hundred thousand francs for a couple of 
ankle-bones, — those are the two financial scourges of 
the Opera.” 


204 


Unconscious Comedians . 


“lam amazed,” said Gazonal, “ at the hundreds of 
thousands of francs walking about here.” 

“We’ll amaze you a good deal more, my dear 
cousin,” said Leon de Lora. “ We ’ll take Paris as 
an artist takes his violoncello, and show you how it is 
played, — in short, how people amuse themselves in 
Paris.” 

“It is a kaleidoscope with a circumference of 
twenty miles,” cried Gazonal. 

“ Before piloting monsieur about, I have to see 
Gaillard,” said Bixiou. 

“But we can use Gaillard for the cousin,” replied 
Leon. 

“ What sort of machine is that? ” asked Gazonal. 

“ He is n’t a machine, he is a machinist. Gaillard 
is a friend of ours who has ended a miscellaneous 
career by becoming the editor of a newspaper, and 
whose character and finances are governed by move- 
ments comparable to those of the tides. Gaillard can 
contribute to make you win your lawsuit — ” 

“ It is lost.” 

“ That ’s the very moment to win it,” replied Bixiou. 

When they reached Theodore Gaillard’s abode, which 
was now in the rue de Menars, the valet ushered the 
three friends into a boudoir and asked them to wait, 
as monsieur was in secret conference. 

“With whom?” asked Bixiou. 


Unconscious Comedians. 


205 


“ With a man who is selling him the incarceration 
of an unseizable debtor/’ replied a handsome woman 
who now appeared in a charming morning toilet. 

- “In that case, my dear Suzanne,” said Bixiou, “I 
am certain we may go in.” 

“Oh! what a beautiful creature! ” said Gazonal. 

“ That is Madame Gaillard,” replied Leon de Lora, 
speaking low into his cousin’s ear. “ She is the most 
humble-minded woman in Paris, for she had the public 
and has contented herself with a husband.” 

“What is your will, messeigneurs ? ” said the face- 
tious editor, seeing his two friends and imitating 
Frederic Lemaitre. 

Theodore Gaillard, formerly a wit, had ended by 
becoming a stupid man in consequence of remaining 
constantly in one centre, — a moral phenomenon fre- 
quently to be observed in Paris. His principal 
method of conversation consisted in sowing his 
speeches with sayings taken from plays then in vogue 
and pronounced in imitation of well-known actors. 

“We have come to blague ,” said Leon. 

“ ‘Again, young men ’ ” (Odry in the Saltimbanques). 

“Well, this time, we’ve got him, sure,” said Gail- 
lard’s other visitor, apparently by way of conclusion. 

“ Are you sure of it, pere Fromenteau?” asked 
Gaillard. “ This is the eleventh time you ’ve caught 
him at night and missed him in the morning.” 


206 


Unconscious Comedians. 


“ How could I help it? I never saw such a debtor ! 
he’s a locomotive; goes to sleep in Paris and wakes 
up in the Seine-et-Oise. A safety lock I call him.” 
Seeing a smile on Gazonal’s face he added: “ That’s 
a saying in our business. Pinch a man, means arrest 
him, lock him up. The criminal police have another 
term. Vidocq said to his man, ‘You are served;’ 
that’s funnier, for it means the guillotine.* 

A nudge from Bixiou made Gazonal all eyes and 
ears. 

“ Does monsieur grease my paws? ” asked Fromen- 
teau of Gaillard, in a threatening but cool tone. 

“ ‘ A question that of fifty centimes ’ ” v (Les Saltim- 
bauques), replied the editor, taking out five francs 
and offering them to Fromenteau. 

“ And the rapscallions? ” said the man. 

“ What rapscallions? ” asked Gaillard. 

“Those I employ,” replied Fromenteau calmly. 

“ Is there a lower depth still? ” asked Bixiou. 

“ Yes, monsieur,” said the spy. “ Some people 
give us information without knowing they do so, and 
without getting paid for it. I put fools and ninnies 
below rapscallions.” 

“ They are often original, and witty, your rap- 
scallions ! ” said Leon. 

“Do you belong to the police? ” asked Gazonal, 
eying with uneasy curiosity the hard, impassible 


Unconscious Comedians. 


207 


little man, who was dressed like the third clerk in a 
sheriff’s office. 

“Which police do you mean?” asked Fromenteau. 

“ Are there several? ” 

“As many as five,” replied the man. “Criminal, 
the head of which was Vidocq; secret police, which 
keeps an eye on the other police, the head of it being 
always unknown ; political police, — that ’s Fouche’s. 
Then there ’s the police of Foreign Affairs, and finally, 
the palace police (of the Emperor, Louis XVIII., etc.), 
always squabbling with that of the quai Malaquais. 
It came to an end under Monsieur Decazes. I be- 
longed to the police of Louis XVIII. ; I ’d been in it 
since 1793, with that poor Contenson.” 

The four gentlemen looked at each other with one 
thought: “ How many heads he must have brought to 
the scaffold ! ” 

“ Now-a-days, they are trying to get on without ns. 
Folly ! ” continued the little man, who began to seem 
terrible. “ Since 1830 they want honest men at the 
prefecture ! I resigned, and I ’ve made myself a small 
vocation by arresting for debt.” 

“He is the right arm of the commercial police,” 
said Gaillard in Bixiou’s ear, “ but you can never find 
out who pays him most, the debtor or the creditor.” 

“ The more rascally a business is, the more honor 
it needs. I ’m for him who pays me best,” continued 


208 


Unconscious Comedians. 


Fromenteau addressing Gaillard. “You want to re- 
cover fifty thousand francs and you talk farthings to 
your means of action. Give me five hundred francs 
and your man is pinched to-night, for we spotted 
him yesterday.” 

“Five hundred francs for you alone!” cried 
Theodore Gaillard. 

“Lizette wants a shawl,” said the spy, not a muscle 
of his face moving. “I call her Lizette because of 
Beranger.” 

“You have a Lizette, and you stay in such a busi- 
ness ! ” cried the virtuous Gazonal. 

“It is amusing! People may cry up the pleasures 
of hunting and fishing as much as they like but to 
stalk a man in Paris is far better fun.” 

“ Certainly,” said Gazonal, reflectively, speaking to 
himself, “ they must have great talent.” 

“ If I were to enumerate the qualities which make a 
man remarkable in our vocation,” said Fromenteau, 
whose rapid glance had enabled him to fathom Gazonal 
completely, “ you’d think I was talking of a man of 
genius. First, we must have the eyes of a lynx ; next, 
audacity (to tear into houses like bombs, accost the 
servants as if we knew them, and propose treachery — 
always agreed to) ; next, memory, sagacity, inven- 
tion (to make schemes, conceived rapidly, never the 
same — for spying must be guided by the characters 


Unconscious Comedians. 


209 


and habits of the persons spied upon ; it is a gift of 
heaven) ; and, finally, agility, vigor. All those facil- 
ities and qualities, monsieur, are depicted on the door 
of the Gymnase-Amoros as Virtue. Well, we must 
Lave them all, under pain of losing the salaries given 
us by the State, the rue de Jerusalem, or the minister 
of Commerce. ” 

“ You certainly seem to me a remarkable man,” said 
Gazonal. 

Fromenteau looked at the provincial without reply- 
ing, without betraying the smallest sign of feeling, 
and departed, bowing to no one, — a trait of real 
genius. 

“ Well, cousin, you have now seen the police incar- 
nate,” said Leon to Gazonal. 

“ It has something the effect of a dinner-pill,” said 
the worthy provincial, while Gaillard and Bixiou were 
talking together in a low voice. 

“I’ll give you an answer to-night at Carabine’s,” 
said Gaillard aloud, re-seating himself at his desk 
without seeing or bowing to Gazonal. 

“ He is a rude fellow ! ” cried the Southerner as they 
left the room. 

“ His paper has twenty-two thousand subscribers,” 
said Leon de Lora. “He is one of the five great 
powers of the day, and he has n’t, in the morning, the 
time to be polite. Now,” continued Le'on, speaking 
14 


210 Unconscious Comedians. 

to Bixiou, “ if we are going to the Chamber to help 
him with his lawsuit let us take the longest way 
round.” 

“ Words said by great men are like silver-gilt 
spoons with the gilt washed off ; by dint of repetition 
they lose their brilliancy,” said Bixiou. “ Where 
shall we go?” 

“ Here, close by, to our hatter,” replied Leon. 

“Bravo!” cried Bixiou. “If we keep on in this 
way, we shall have an amusing day of it.” 

“ Gazonal,” said Leon, “ I shall make the man pose 
for you ; but mind that you keep a serious face, like 
the king on a five-franc piece, for you are going to 
see a choice original, a man whose importance has 
turned his head. In these days, my dear fellow, 
under our new political dispensation, every human 
being tries to cover himself with glory, and most of 
them cover themselves with ridicule; hence a lot of 
living caricatures quite new to the world.” 

“If everybody gets glory, who can be famous?” 
said Gazonal. 

“ Fame ! none but fools want that,” replied Bixiou. 
“ Your cousin wears the cross, but I ’m the better 
dressed of the two, and it is I whom people are 
looking at.” 

After this remark, which may explain why orators 
and other great statesmen no longer put the ribbon in 


Unconscious Comedians. 


211 


their buttonholes when in Paris, Leon showed Gazonal 
a sign, bearing, in golden letters, the illustrious name 
of Vital, successor to Finot, manufacturer of liats (no 
longer “hatter ” as formerly), whose advertisements 
brought in more money to the newspapers than those 
of any half-dozen vendors of pills or sugarplums, — the 
author, moreover, of an essay on hats. 

“My dear fellow,” said Bixiou to Gazonal, point- 
ing to the splendors of the show-window, “Vital 
has forty thousand francs a year from invested 
property. ” 

“ And he stays a hatter! ” cried the Southerner, with 
a bound that almost broke the arm which Bixiou had 
linked in his. 

“ You shall see the man,” said Leon. “ You need 
a hat and you shall have one gratis.” 

“Is Monsieur Vital absent?” asked Bixiou, seeing 
no one behind the desk. 

“ Monsieur is correcting proof in his study,” replied 
the head clerk. 

“ Hein! what style! ” said Leon to his cousin; then 
he added, addressing the clerk: “Could we speak to 
him without injury to his inspiration? ” 

“Let those gentlemen enter,” said a voice. 

It was a bourgeois voice, the voice of one eligible to 
the Chamber, a powerful voice, a wealthy voice. 

Vital deigned to show himself, dressed entirely in 


212 


Unconscious Comedians. 


black cloth, with a splendid frilled shirt adorned with 
one diamond. The three friends observed a young 
and pretty woman sitting near the desk, working at 
some embroidery. 

Vital is a man between thirty and forty years of 
age, with a natural joviality now repressed by ambitious 
ideas. He is blessed with that medium height which 
is the privilege of sound organizations. He is rather 
plump, and takes great pains with his person. His 
forehead is getting bald, but he uses that circum- 
stance to give himself the air of a man consumed by 
thought. It is easy to see by the way his wife looks 
at him an‘d listens to him that she believes in the 
genius and glory of her husband. Vital loves artists, 
not that he has any taste for art, but from fellowship ; 
for he feels himself an artist, and makes this felt by 
disclaiming that title of nobility, and placing himself 
with constant premeditation at so great a distance 
from the arts that persons may be forced to say to 
him: “ You have raised the construction of hats to the 
height of a science.” 

“Have you at last discovered a hat to suit me?” 
asked Leon de Lora. 

“Why, monsieur! in fifteen days?” replied Vital, 
“and for you! Two months would hardly suffice to 
invent a shape in keeping with your countenance. 
See, here is your lithographic portrait: I have studied 


Unconscious Comedians. 


213 


it most carefully. I would not give myself that 
trouble for a prince; but you are more; you are an 
artist, and you understand me.” 

“ This is one of our greatest inventors,” said Bixiou 
presenting Gazonal. “He might be as great as 
Jacquart if he would only let himself die. Our friend, 
a manufacturer of cloth, has discovered a method of 
replacing the indigo in old blue coats, and he wants 
to see you as another great phenomenon, because he 
has heard of your saying, 4 The hat is the man.’ That 
speech of yours enraptured him. Ah! Vital, you have 
faith; you believe in something; you have enthusiasm 
for your work.” 

Vital scarcely listened; he grew pale with pleasure. 

“ Eise, my wife! Monsieur is a prince of science.” 

Madame Vital rose at her husband’s gesture. 
Gazonal bowed to her. 

“ Shall I have the honor to cover your head? ” said 
Vital, with joyful obsequiousness. 

“ At the same price as mine,” interposed Bixiou. 

“Of course, of course; I ask no other fee than to 
be quoted by you, messieurs — Monsieur needs a 
picturesque hat, something in the style of Monsieur 
Lousteau’s,” he continued, looking at Gazonal with 
the eye of a master. “ I will consider it.” 

“ You give yourself a great deal of trouble,” said 
Gazonal. 


214 


Unconscious Comedians. 


“ Oh! for a few persons only; for those who know 
how to appreciate the value of the pains I bestow upon 
them. Now, take the aristocracy — there is but one 
man there who has truly comprehended the Hat ; and 
that is the Prince de Bethune. How is it that men 
do not consider, as women do, that the hat is the first 
thing that strikes the eye? And why have they never 
thought of changing the present system, which is, let 
us say it frankly, ignoble? Yes, ignoble; and yet a 
Frenchman is, of all nationalities, the one most per- 
sistent in this folly! I know the difficulties of a 
change, messieurs. I don’t speak of my own writings 
on the matter, which, as I think, approach it philo- 
sophically, but simply as a hatter. I have myself 
studied means to accentuate the infamous head-cover- 
ing to which France is now enslaved until I succeed 
in overthrowing it.” 

So saying he pointed to the hideous hat in vogue at 
the present day. 

“Behold the enemy, messieurs,” he continued. 
“How is it that the wittiest and most satirical people 
on earth will consent to wear upon their heads a bit 
of stove-pipe ? — as one of our great writers has called 
it. Here are some of the inflections I have been able 
to give to those atrocious lines,” he added, pointing to 
a number of his creations. ‘ ‘ But, although I am able 
to conform them to the character of each wearer — for, 


Unconscious Comedians. 


215 


as you see, here are the hats of a doctor, a grocer, a 
dandy, an artist, a fat man, a thin man, and so forth 
— the style itself remains horrible. Seize, I beg of 
you, my whole thought — ” 

He took up a hat, low-crowned and wide-brimmed. 

“ This,” he continued, “is the old hat of Claude 
Yignon, a great critic, in the days when he was a free 
man and a free-liver. He has lately come round to 
the ministry; they’ve made him a professor, a 
librarian; he writes now for the Debats only; they’ve 
appointed him Master of Petitions with a salary of 
sixteen thousand francs ; he earns four thousand more 
out of his paper, and he is decorated. Well, now see 
his new hat.” 

And Vital showed them a hat of a form and design 
which was truly expressive of th q just e-milieu. 

“ You ought to have made him a Punch and Judy 
hat ! ” cried Gazonal. 

“You are a man of genius, Monsieur Vital,” said 
Leon. 

Vital bowed. 

“ Would you kindly tell me why the shops of your 
trade in Paris remain open late at night, — later than 
the cafe's and the wineshops ? That fact puzzles me 
very much,” said Gazonal. 

“In the first place, our shops are much finer when 
lighted up than they are in the daytime; next, where 


216 


Unconscious Comedians. 


we sell ten hats in the daytime we sell fifty at 
night.” 

“Everything is queer in Paris,” said Leon. 

“Thanks to my efforts and my successes,” said 
Vital, returning to the course of his self-laudation, 
“ we are coming to hats with round headpieces. It is 
to that I tend ! ” 

“ What obstacle is there?” asked Gazonal. 

“ Cheapness, monsieur. In the first place, ver.y 
handsome silk hats can be built for fifteen francs, 
which kills our business ; for in Paris no one ever has 
fifteen francs in his pocket to spend on a hat. If a 
beaver hat costs thirty, it is still the same thing — 
When I say beaver , I ought to state that there are not 
ten pounds of beaver skins left in France. That 
article is worth three hundred and fifty francs a pound, 
and it takes an ounce for a hat. Besides, a beaver 
hat is n’t really worth anything ; the skin takes a 
wretched dye; gets rusty in ten minutes in the sun, 
and heat puts it out of shape as well. What we call 
4 beaver ’ in the trade is neither more nor less than 
hare’s-skin. The best qualities are made from the 
back of the animal, the second from the sides, the 
third from the belly. I confide to you these trade 
secrets because you are men of honor. But whether a 
man has hare’s-skin or silk on his head, fifteen or 
thirty francs in short, the problem is always insoluble. 


Unconscious Comedians. 


217 


Hats must be paid for in cash, and that is why the 
hat remains what it is. The honor of vestural France 
will be saved on the day that gray hats with round 
crowns can be made to cost a hundred francs. We 
could then, like the tailors, give credit. To reach that 
result men must resolve to wear buckles, gold lace, 
plumes, and the brims lined with satin, as in the days 
of Louis XIII. and Louis XIV. Our business, which 
would then enter the domain of fancy, would increase 
tenfold. The markets of the world should belong to 
France; Paris will forever give the tone to women’s 
fashions, and yet the hats which all Frenchmen wear 
to-day are made in every country on earth! There 
are ten* millions of foreign money to be gained 
annually for France in that question — ” 

“ A revolution ! ” cried Bixiou, pretending enthu- 
siasm. 

“Yes, and a radical one; for the form must be 
changed.” 

“You are happy after the manner of Luther in 
dreaming of reform,” said Leon. 

“ Yes, monsieur. Ah! if a dozen or fifteen artists, 
capitalists, or dandies who set the tone would only 
have courage for twenty-four hours France would gain 
a splendid commercial battle! To succeed in this 
reform I would give my whole fortune! Yes, my sole 
ambition is to regenerate the hat and disappear.” 


218 


Unconscious Comedians. 


“The man is colossal,” said Gazonal, as they left 
the shop; “ but I assure you that all your originals so 
far have a touch of the Southerner about them.” 

“Let us go this way,” said Bixiou pointing to the 
rue Saint-Marc. 

“ Do you want to show me something else? ” 

“Yes; you shall see the usuress of rats, marcheuses 
and great ladies, — a woman who possesses more ter- 
rible secrets than there are gowns hanging in her 
window,” said Bixiou. 

And he showed Gazonal one of those untidy shops 
which make an ugly stain in the midst of the dazzling 
show-windows of modern retail commerce. This shop 
had a front painted in 1820, which some bankrupt had 
doubtless left in a dilapidated condition. The color 
had disappeared beneath a double coating of dirt, the 
result of usage, and a thick layer of dust ; the window- 
panes were filthy, the door-knob turned of itself, as 
door-knobs do in all places where people go out more 
quickly than they enter. 

“ What do you say of that? First cousin to Death, 
isn’t she?” said Leon in Gazonal’s ear, showing 
him, at the desk, a terrible individual. “ Well, she 
calls herself Madame Nourrisson.” 

“Madame, how much is this guipure?” asked the 
manufacturer, intending to compete in liveliness with 
the two artists. 


Unconscious Comedians. 


219 


“To you, monsieur, who come from the country, it 
will be only three hundred francs,” she replied. Then, 
remarking in his manner a sort of eagerness peculiar 
to Southerners, she added, in a grieved tone, u It 
formerly belonged to that poor Princesse de Lamballe.” 

“ What! do you dare exhibit it so near the palace?” 
cried Bixiou. 

“Monsieur, they don’t believe in it,” she replied. 

“Madame, we have not come to make purchases,” 
said Bixiou, with a show of frankness. 

“ So I see, monsieur,” returned Madame Nourrisson. 

“We have several things to sell,” said the illustri- 
ous caricaturist. “ I live close by, rue de Richelieu, 
112, sixth floor. If you will come round there for a 
moment, you may perhaps make some good bargains.” 

Ten minutes later Madame Nourrisson did in fact 
present herself at Bixiou’ s lodgings, where by that time 
he had taken Leon and Gazonal. Madame Nourrisson 
found them all three as serious as authors whose col- 
laboration does not meet with the success it deserves. 

“ Madame,” said the intrepid hoaxer, showing her 
a pair of women’s slippers, “ these belonged formerly 
to the Empress Josephine.” 

He felt it incumbent on him to return change for 
the Princesse de Lamballe. 

“Those!” she exclaimed; “they were made this 
year; look at the mark.” 


220 


Unconscious Comedians. 


“ Don’t you perceive that the slippers are only by 
way of preface?” said Leon; “though, to be sure, 
they are usually the conclusion of a tale.” 

“ My friend here,” said Bixiou, motioning to 
Gazonal, “ has an immense family interest in ascer- 
taining whether a young lady of a good and wealthy 
house, whom he wishes to marry, has ever gone 
wrong.” 

“ How much will monsieur give for the informa- 
tion,” she asked, looking at Gazonal, who was no 
longer surprised by anything. 

“One hundred francs,” he said. 

“No, thank you!” she said with a grimace of 
refusal worthy of a macaw. 

“ Then say how much you want, my little Madame 
Nourrisson,” cried Bixiou catching her round the 
waist. 

“In the first place, my dear gentlemen, I have 
never, since I ’ve been in the business, found man or 
woman to haggle over happiness. Besides,” she said, 
letting a cold smile flicker on her lips, and enforcing 
it by an icy glance full of catlike distrust, “if it 
does n’t concern your happiness, it concerns your for- 
tune; and at the height where I find you lodging no 
man haggles over a dot— Come,” she said, “out 
with it! What is it you want to know, my lambs? ” 

“ About the Beunier family,” replied Bixiou, very 


Unconscious Comedians. 


221 


glad to find out something in this indirect manner 
about persons in whom he was interested. 

“Oh! as for that,” she said, “one louis is quite 
enough.” 

“Why?” 

“ Because I hold all the mother’s jewels and she’s 
on tenter-hooks every three months, I can tell you ! It 
is hard work for her to pay the interest on what I ’ve 
lent her. Do you want to marry there, simpleton ? ” 
she added, addressing Gazonal; “then pay me forty 
francs and I’ll talk four hundred worth.” 

Gazonal produced a forty-franc gold-piece, and 
Madame Nourrisson gave him startling details as to 
the secret penury of certain so-called fashionable 
women. This dealer in cast-off clothes, getting lively 
as she talked, pictured herself unconsciously while 
telling of others. Without betraying a single name 
or any secret, she made the three men shudder by 
proving to them how little so-called happiness existed 
in Paris that did not rest on the vacillating founda- 
tion of borrowed money. She possessed, laid away 
in her drawers, the secrets of departed grandmothers, 
living children, deceased husbands, dead granddaugh- 
ters, — memories set in gold and diamonds. She 
learned appalling histories by making her clients talk 
of one another; tearing their secrets from them in 
moments of passion, of quarrels, of anger, and during 


222 


Unconscious Comedians. 


those cooler negotiations which need a loan to settle 
difficulties. 

“Why were you ever induced to take up such a 
business?” asked Gazonal. 

“For my son’s sake,” she said naively. 

Such women almost invariably justify their trade by 
alleging noble motives. Madame Nourrisson posed 
as having lost several opportunities for marriage, also 
three daughters who had gone to the bad, and all her 
illusions. She showed the pawn- tickets of the Mont- 
de-Piete to prove the risks her business ran ; declared 
she did not know how to meet the “end of the month; ” 
she was robbed, she said, — robbed. 

The two artists looked at each other on hearing 
that expression, which seemed exaggerated. 

“ Look here, my sons, I ’ll show you how we are 
done. It is not about myself, but about my opposite 
neighbor, Madame Mahuchet, a ladies’ shoemaker. I 
had loaned money to a countess, a woman who has too 
many passions for her means, — lives in a fine apart- 
ment filled with splendid furniture, and makes, as we 
say, a devil of a show with her high and mighty airs. 
She owed three hundred francs to her shoemaker, and 
was giving a dinner no later than yesterday. The 
shoemaker, who heard of the dinner from the cook, 
came to see me ; we got excited, and she wanted to 
make a row ; but I said : 4 My dear Madame Mahuchet, 


Unconscious Comedians. 


223 


what good will that do? you ’ll only get yourself hated. 
It is much better to obtain some security; and you 
save your bile.’ She wouldn’t listen, but go she 
would, and asked me to support her; so I went. 
4 Madame is not at home.’ — 4 Up to that! we ’ll wait,’ 
said Madame Mahuchet , 4 if we have to stay all night,’ 
— and down we camped in the antechamber. Pres- 
ently the doors began to open and shut, and feet and 
voices came along. I felt badly. The guests were 
arriving for dinner. You can see the appearance it 
had. The countess sent her maid to coax Madame 
Mahuchet: 4 Pay you to-morrow!’ in short, all the 
snares! Nothing took. The countess, dressed to the 
nines, went to the dining-room. Mahuchet heard her 
and opened the door. Gracious ! when she saw that 
table sparkling with silver, the covers to the dishes 
aud the chandeliers all glittering like a jewel-case, 
didn’t she go off like soda-water and fire her shot: 
4 When people spend the money of others they should 
be sober and not give dinner-parties. Think of your 
being a countess and owing three hundred francs to a 
poor shoemaker with seven children! ’ You can guess 
how she railed, for the Mahuchet has n’t any educa- 
tion. When the countess tried to make an excuse 
( 4 no money’) Mahuchet screamed out: 4 Look at all 
your fine silver, madame; pawn it and pay me!’ — 

4 Take some yourself,’ said the countess quickly, 


224 


Unconscious Comedians. 


gathering up a quantity of forks and spoons and 
putting them into her hands. Downstairs we rattled ! 
— heavens! like success itself. No, before we got 
to the street Mahuchet began to cry — she ’s a kind 
woman ! She turned back and restored the silver ; for 
she now understood that countess’s poverty — it was 
plated ware ! ” 

“And she forked it over,” said Leon, in whom the 
former Mistigris occasionally reappeared. 

“Ah! my dear monsieur,” said Madame Nourrisson, 
enlightened by the slang, “you are an artist, you 
write plays, you live in the rue du Helder and are 
friends with Madame Antonia ; you have habits that 
I know all about. Come, do you want some rarity in 
the grand style, — Carabine or Mousqueton, Malaga or 
Jenny Cadine? ” 

“Malaga, Carabine! nonsense!” cried Ldon de 
Lora. “It was we who invented them.” 

“I assure you, my good Madame Nourrisson,” said 
Bixiou, “that we only wanted the pleasure of making 
your acquaintance,' and we should like very much to 
be informed as to how you ever came to slip into this 
business.” 

“ I was confidential maid in the family of a marshal 
of France, Prince d’Ysembourg,” she said, assuming 
the airs of a Dorine. “One morning, one of the most 
beplumed countesses of the Imperial court came to 


Unconscious Comedians. 


225 


the house and wanted to speak to the marshal pri- 
vately. I put myself in the way of hearing what 
she said. She burst into tears and confided to that 
booby of a marshal — yes, the Conde of the Republic 
is a booby ! — that her husband, who served under him 
in Spain, had left her without means, and if she 
did n’t get a thousand francs, or two thousand, that day 
her children must go without food; she hadn’t any for 
the morrow. The marshal, who was always ready to 
give in those days, took two notes of a thousand francs 
each out of his desk, and gave them to her. I saw 
that fine countess going down the staircase where she 
could n’t see me. She was laughing with a satisfac- 
tion that certainly wasn’t motherly, so I slipped after 
her to the peristyle where I heard her say to the 
coachman, ‘ To Leroy’s.’ I ran round quickly to 
Leroy’s, and there, sure enough, was the poor mother. 
I got there in time to see her order and pay for a 
fifteen-hundred-frauc dress ; you understand that in 
those days people were made to pay when they 
bought. The next day but one she appeared at an 
ambassador’s ball, dressed to please all the world and 
some one in particular. That day I said to myself : 
‘ I ’ve got a career! When I ’m no longer young I ’ll 
lend money to great ladies on their finery ; for passion 
never calculates, it pays blindly. ’ If you want sub- 
jects for a vaudeville I can sell you plenty.” 


226 


Unconscious Comedians. 


She departed after delivering this tirade, in which 
all the phases of her past life were outlined, leaving 
Gazonal as much horrified by her revelations as by 
the five yellow teeth she showed when she tried to 
smile. 

“ What shall we do now? ” he asked presently. 

“Make notes, ” replied Bixiou, whistling for his 
porter; “for I want some money, and I ’ll show you 
the use of porters. You think they only pull the gate- 
cord ; whereas they really pull poor devils like me and 
artists whom they take under their protection out of 
difficulties. Mine will get the Montyon prize one of 
these days. ” 

Gazonal opened his eyes to their utmost roundness. 

A man between two ages, partly a graybeard, partly 
an office-boy, but more oily within and without, hair 
greasy, stomach puffy, skin dull and moist, like that 
of the prior of a convent, always wearing list shoes, a 
blue coat, and grayish trousers, made his appearance. 

“ What is it, monsieur? ” he said with an air which 
combined that of a protector and a subordinate. 

“ Ravenouillet — Ilis name is Ravenouillet,” said 
Bixiou turning to Gazonal. “Have you our note- 
book of bills due with you?” 

Ravenouillet pulled out of his pocket the greasiest 
and stickiest book that Gazonal’ s eyes had ever 
beheld. 


Unconscious Comedians. 


227 


“ Write down at three months’ sight two notes of 
five hundred francs each, which you will proceed to 
sign.” 

And Bixiou handed over two notes already drawn 
to his order by Ravenouillet, which Ravenouillet 
immediately signed and inscribed on the greasy book, 
in which his wife also kept account of the debts of the 
other lodgers. 

“Thanks, Ravenouillet,” said Bixiou. “ And here ’s 
a box at the Vaudeville for you.” 

“Oh! my daughter will enjoy that,” said Rave- 
nouillet, departing. 

“ There are seventy-one tenants in this house,” said 
Bixiou, “ and the average of what they owe Rave- 
nouillet is six thousand francs a month, eighteen thou- 
sand quarterly for money advanced, postage, etc., not 
counting the rents due. He is Providence — at thirty 
per cent, which we all pay him, though he never asks 
for anything.” 

“ Oh, Paris! Paris! ” cried Gazonal. 

“ I’m going to take you now, cousin Gazonal,” said 
Bixiou, after indorsing the notes, “to see another 
comedian, who will play j^ou a charming scene gratis.” 

“ Who is it? ” said Gazonal. 

“ A usurer. As we go along I ’ll tell you the debut 
of friend Ravenouillet in Paris.” 

Passing in front of the porter’s lodge, Gazonal 


228 


Unconscious Comedians. 


saw Mademoiselle Lucienne Ravenouillet holding in 
her hand a music score (she was a pupil of the Con- 
servatoire), her father reading a newspaper, and 
Madame Kavenouillet with a package of letters to be 
carried up to the lodgers. 

“ Thanks, Monsieur Bixiou! ” said the girl. 

“ She ’snot a rat,” explained Leon to his cousin; 
“ she is the larva of the grasshopper.” 

“ Here ’s the history of Ravenouillet,” continued 
Bixiou, when the three friends reached the boulevard. 
“In 1831 Massol, the councillor of state who is deal- 
ing with your case, was a lawyer-journalist who at 
that time never thought of being more than Keeper of 
the Seals, and deigned to leave King Louis-Philippe 
on his throne. Forgive his ambition, he ’s from Car- 
cassonne. One morning there entered to him a young 
rustic of his parts, who said: ‘ You know me very well, 
Mossoo Massol; I’m your neighbor the grocer’s little 
boy ; I ’ve come from down there, for they tell me a 
fellow is certain to get a place if he comes to Paris. ’ 
Hearing these words, Massol shuddered, and said to 
himself that if he were weak enough to help this com- 
patriot (to him utterly unknown) he should have the 
whole department prone upon him, his bell-rope would 
break, his valet leave him, he should have difficulties 
with his landlord about the stairway, and the other 
lodgers would assuredly complain of the smell of 


Unconscious Comedians. 


229 


garlic pervading the house. Consequently, he looked 
at his visitor as a butcher looks at a sheep whose 
throat he intends to cut. But whether the rustic com- 
prehended the stab of that glance or not, he went on 
to say (so Massol told me), 4 1 ’ve as much ambition as 
other men. I will never go back to my native place, 
if I ever do go back, unless I am a rich man. Paris 
is the antechamber of Paradise. They tell me that 
you who write the newspapers can make, as they say, 
“fine weather and foul;” that is, you have things all 
your own way, and it ’s enough to ask your help to 
get any place, no matter what, under government. 
Now, though I have faculties, like others, I know 
myself: I have no education; I don’t know how to 
write, and that ’s a misfortune, for I have ideas. I 
am not seeking, therefore, to be your rival; I judge 
myself, and I know I could n’t succeed there. But, 
as you are so powerful, and as we are almost brothers, 
having played together in childhood, I count upon you 
to launch me in a career and to protect me — Oh, 
you must; I want a place; a place suitable to my 
capacity, to such as I am, a place where I can make 
my fortune.’ Massol was just about to put his com- 
patriot neck and crop out of the door with some 
brutal speech, when the rustic ended his appeal thus : 

1 1 don’t ask to enter the administration where people 
advance like tortoises — there ’s your cousin, who has 


230 


Unconscious Comedians. 


stuck in one post for twenty years. No, I only want 
to make my debut. ’ — 4 On the stage?’ asked Massol 
only too happy at that conclusion. ; — 4 No; though I 
have gesture enough, and figure, and memory. But 
there’s too much wear and tear; I prefer the career of 
'porter.' Massol kept his countenance, and replied: 
4 1 think there ’s more wear and tear in that, but as 
your choice is made I ’ll see what I can do; ’ and he 
got him, as Ravenouillet says, his first cordon .” 

44 1 was the first master,” said Leon, 44 to consider 
the race of porter. You ’ll find knaves of morality, 
mountebauks of vanity, modern sycophants, septem- 
briseurs , disguised in philanthropy, inventors of palpi- 
tating questions, preaching the emancipation of the 
negroes, improvement of little thieves, benevolence to 
liberated convicts, and who, nevertheless, leave their 
porters in a condition worse than that of the Irish, in 
holes more dreadful than a mud cabin, and pay them 
less money to live on than the State pays to support a 
convict. I have done but one good action in my life, 
and that was to build my porter a decent lodge.” 

44 Yes,” said Bixiou, 44 if a man, having built a great 
cage divided into thousands of compartments like 
the cells of a beehive or the dens of a menagerie, con- 
structed to receive human beings of all trades and all 
kinds, if that animal, calling itself the proprietor, 
should go to a man of science and say : 4 1 want an 


Unconscious Comedians. . 231 

individual of the bimanous species, able to live in 
holes full of old boots, pestiferous with rags, and ten 
feet square ; I want him such that he can live there all 
his life, sleep there, eat there, be happy, get children 
as pretty as little cupids, work, toil, cultivate flowers, 
sing there, stay there, and live in darkness but see 
and know everything,* most assuredly the man of 
science could never have invented the porter to oblige 
the proprietor; Paris, and Paris only could create 
him, or, if you choose, the devil.” 

“Parisian creative powers have gone farther than 
that,” said Gazonal; “look at the workmen! You 
don’t know all the products of industry, though you 
exhibit them. Our toilers fight against the toilers of 
the continent by force of misery, as Napoleon fought 
Europelby force of regiments.” 

“Here we are, at my friend the usurer’s,” said 
Bixiou. “ His name is Vauvinet. One of the greatest 
mistakes made by writers who describe our manners 
and morals is to harp on old portraits. In these days 
all trades change. The grocer becomes a peer of 
France, artists capitalize their money, vaudevillists 
have incomes. A few rare beings may remain what 
they originally were, but professions in general have 
no longer either their special costume or their formerly 
fixed habits and ways. In the past we had Gobseck, 
Gigonnet, Samonon, — the last of the Romans; to-day 


282 


Unconscious Comedians. 


we rejoice in Vauvinet, the good-fellow usurer, the 
dandy who frequents the greenroom and the lorettes, 
and drives about in a little coupe with one horse. 
Take special note of my man, friend Gazonal, and 
you ’ll see the comedy of money, the cold man who 
won’t give a penny, the hot man who snuffs a profit; 
listen to him attentively! ” 

All three went up to the second floor of a fine-look- 
ing house on the boulevard des Italiens, where they 
found themselves surrounded by the elegances then 
in fashion. A young man about twenty-eight years 
of age advanced to meet them with a smiling face, for 
he saw Leon de Lora first. Vauvinet held out his 
hand with apparent friendliness to Bixiou, and bowed 
coldly to Gazonal as he motioned them to enter his 
office, where bourgeois taste was visible beneath the 
artistic appearance of the furniture, and in spite of 
the statuettes and the thousand other little trifles 
applied to our little apartments by modern art, which 
has made itself as small as its patrons. 

Vauvinet was dressed, like other young men of our 
day who go into business, with extreme elegance, 
which many of them regard as a species of prospectus. 

“I’ve come for some money,” said Bixiou, laugh- 
ing, and presenting his notes. 

Vauvinet assumed a serious air, which made 
Gazonal smile, such difference was there between the 


Unconscious Comedians. 


233 


smiling visage that received them and the coun- 
tenance of the money-lender recalled to business.’ 

“My dear fellow,” said Vauvinet, looking at Bixiou, 
“I should certainly oblige you with the greatest 
pleasure, but I have n’t any money to loan at the 
present time. ” 

“Ah, bah!” 

“No; I have given all I had to — you know who. 
That poor Lousteau went into partnership for the 
management of a theatre with an old vaudevillist who 
has great influence with the ministry, Ridal ; and they 
came to me yesterday for thirty thousand francs. 
I’m cleaned out, and so completely that I was just 
in the act of sending to Cerizet for a hundred louis, 
which I lost at lansquenet this morning, at Jenny 
Cadine’s.” 

“You must indeed be hard-up if you can’t oblige 
this poor Bixiou,” said Leon de Lora; “ for he can be 
very sharp-tongued when he has n’t a sou.” 

“ Well,” said Bixiou, “ I never could say anything 
but good of Vauvinet; he ’s full of goods.” 

“My dear friend,” said Vauvinet, “if I had the 
money, I could n’t possibly discount, even at fifty 
per cent, notes which are drawn by your porter. 
Ravenouillet’s paper is n’t in demand. He ’s not a 
Rothschild. I warn you that his notes are worn thin ; 
you had better invent another firm. Find an uncle. 


234 


Unconscious Comedians. 


As for a friend who ’ll sign notes for us there ’s no 
such being to be found ; the matter-of-factness of the 
present age is making awful progress.” 

“ I have a friend,” said Bixiou, motioning to Leon’s 
cousin. “Monsieur here; one of the most distin- 
guished manufacturers of cloth in the South, named 
Gazonal. His hair is not very well dressed,” added 
Bixiou, looking at the touzled and luxuriant crop on 
the provincial’s head, “but I am going to take him to 
Marius, who will make him look less like a poodle- 
dog, an appearance so injurious to his credit, and to 
ours.” 

“ I don’t believe in Southern securities, be it said 
without offence to monsieur,” replied Vauvinet, with 
whom Gazonal was so entertained that he did not 
resent his insolence. 

Gazonal, that extremely penetrating intellect, thought 
that the painter and Bixiou intended, by way of teach- 
ing him to know Paris, to make him pay the thousand 
francs for his breakfast at the Cafe de Paris, for this 
son of the Pyrenees had never got out of that armor 
of distrust which incloses the provincial in Paris. 

“ How can you expect me to have outstanding busi- 
ness at seven hundred miles from Paris?” added 
Vauvinet. 

“ Then you refuse me positively? ” asked Bixiou. 

“ I have twenty francs, and no more,” said the 
young usurer. 


Unconscious Comedians. 


235 


“I’m sorry for you,” said the joker. “I thought 
I was worth a thousand francs.” 

“You are worth two hundred thousand francs,” 
replied Yauvinet, “ and sometimes you are worth your 
weight in gold, or at least your tongue is; but I tell 
you I have n’t a penny.” 

“Very good,” replied Bixiou; “then we won’t say 
anything more about it. I had arranged for this 
evening, at Carabine’s, the thing you most wanted — 
you know? ” 

Vauvinet winked an eye at Bixiou; the wink that 
two jockeys give each other when they want to say : 
“ Don’t try trickery.” 

“ Don’t you remember catching me round the waist 
as if I were a pretty woman,” said Bixiou, “and 
coaxing me with look and speech, and saying, ‘ I ’ll do 
anything for you if you ’ll only get me shares at par 
in that railroad du Tillet and Nucingen have made an 
offer for? ’ Well, old fellow, du Tibet and Nucingen 
are coming to Carabine’s to-night, where they will 
meet a number of political characters. You ’ve lost 
a fine opportunity. Good-bye to you, old carrot.” 

Bixiou rose, leaving Vauvinet apparently indiffer- 
ent, but inwardly annoyed by the sense that he had 
committed a folly. 

“One moment, my dear fellow,” said the money- 
lender. “Though I have n’t the money, I have credit. 


236 Unconscious Comedians. 

If your notes are worth nothing, I can keep them and 
give you notes in exchange. If we can come to an 
agreement about that railway stock we could share the 
profits, of course in due proportion and I ’ll allow 
you that on — ” 

“No, no,” said Bixiou, “I want money in hand, 
and I must get those notes of Ravenouillet’s cashed.” 

“ Ravenouillet is sound,” said Vauvinet. “ He puts 
money into the savings-bank; he is good security.” 

“ Better than you,” interposed Leon, “ for he does n’t 
stipend lorettes; he hasn’t any rent to pay; and he 
never rushes into speculations which keep him dread- 
ing either a rise or fall.” 

“You think you can laugh at me, great man,” 
returned Vauvinet, once more jovial and caressing; 
“you ’ve turned La Fontaine’s fable of ‘Le Chene et 
le Roseau ’ into an elixir — Come, Gubetta, my old 
accomplice,” he continued, seizing Bixiou round the 
waist, “ you want money; well, I can borrow three 
thousand francs from my friend Cerizet instead of 
two; 4 Let us be friends, Cinna! ’ hand over your 
colossal cabbages, — made to trick the public like a 
gardener’s catalogue. If I refused you it was because 
it is pretty hard on a man who can only do his poor 
little- business by turning over his money, to have to 
keep your Ravenouillet notes in the drawer of his 
desk. Hard, hard, very hard ! ” 


Unconscious Comedians. 


237 


“ What discount do you want? ” asked Bixiou. 

“Next to nothing,” returned Vauvinet. “It will 
cost you a miserable fifty francs at the end of the 
quarter.” 

“ As fimile Blondet used to. say, you shall be my 
benefactor,” replied Bixiou. 

“ Twenty per cent! ” whispered Gazonal to Bixiou, 
who replied by a punch of his elbow in the provincial’s 
oesophagus. 

“Bless me!” said Vauvinet opening a drawer in 
his desk as if to put away the Ravenouillet notes, 
“ here ’s an old bill of five hundred francs stuck in the 
drawer! I didn’t know I was so rich. And here’s 
a note payable at the end of the month for four hun- 
dred and fifty; Cerizet will take it without much 
diminution, and there ’s your sum in hand. But no 
nonsense, Bixiou! Hein? to-night, at Carabine’s, 
will you swear to me — ” 

“Haven’t we re-friended?” said Bixiou, pocketing 
the five-hundred-franc bill and the note for four hun- 
dred and fifty. “ I give you my word of honor that 
you shall see du Tillet, and many other men who 
want to make their way — their railway — to-night at 
Carabine’s.” 

Vauvinet conducted the three friends to the landing 
of the staircase, cajoling Bixiou on the way. Bixiou 
kept a grave face till he reached the outer door, listen- 


238 


Unconscious Comedians. 


ing to Gazonal, who tried to enlighten him on his late 
operation, and to prove to him that if Vauvinet’s fol- 
lower, Cerizet, took another twenty francs out of his 
four hundred and fifty, he was getting money at forty 
per cent. 

When they reached the asphalt Bixiou frightened 
Gazonal by the laugh of a Parisian hoaxer, — that 
cold, mute laugh, a sort of labial north wind. 

“ The assignment of the contract for that railway is 
adjourned, positively, by the Chamber; I heard this 
yesterday from that marcheuse whom we smiled at 
just now. If I win five or six thousand francs at 
lansquenet to-night, why should I grudge sixty-five 
francs for the power to stake , hey?” 

“ Lansquenet is another of the thousand facets of 
Paris as it is,” said Leon. “And therefore, cousin, 
I intend to present you to-night in the salon of a 
duchess, — a duchess of the rue Saint-Georges, where 
you will see the aristocracy of the lorettes, and prob- 
ably be able to win your lawsuit. But it is quite 
impossible to present you anywhere with that mop of 
Pyrenean hair; you look like a porcupine; and there- 
fore we ’ll take you close by, Place de la Bourse, to 
Marius, another of our comedians — ” 

“Who is he?” 

u I ’ll tell you his tale,” said Bixiou. 11 In the year 
1800 a Toulousian named Cabot, a young wig-maker 


Unconscious Comedians. 


239 


devoured by ambition, came to Paris, and set up a 
shop (I use your slang). This man of genius, — he 
now has an income of twenty-four thousand francs a 
year, and lives, retired from business, at Libourne, — 
well, he saw that so vulgar and ignoble a name as 
Cabot could never attain celebrity. Monsieur de 
Parny, whose hair he cut, gave him the name of 
Marius, iufinitely superior, you perceive, to the Chris- 
tian names of Armand and Hippolyte, behind which 
patronymics attacked by the Cabot evil are wont to 
hide. All the successors of Cabot have called them- 
selves Marius. The present Marius is Marius V. ; 
his real name is Mongin. This occurs in various 
other trades ; for ‘ Botot water, ’ and for 4 Little- 
Virtue J ink. Names become commercial property in 
Paris, and have ended by constituting a sort of ensign 
of nobility. The present Marius, who takes pupils, 
has created, he says, the leading school of hair-dressing 
in the world.” 

“ I ’ve seen, in coming through France,” said 
Gazonal, “a great many signs bearing the words: 
‘ Such a one, pupil of Marius.’ ” 

44 His pupils have to wash their hands after every 
head,” said Bixiou; “but Marius does not take them 
indifferently; they must have nice hands, and not be 
ill-looking. The most remarkable for manners, ap- 
pearance, and elocution are sent out to dress heads; 


240 


Unconscious Comedians . 


and they come back tired to death. Marius himself 
never turns out except for titled women ; he drives his 
cabriolet and has a groom.” 

“ But, after all, he is nothing but a barber! ” cried 
Gazonal, somewhat shocked. 

“Barber!” exclaimed Bixiou; “please remember 
that he is captain in the National Guard, and is deco- 
rated for being the first to spring into a barricade in 
1832 .” 

“And take care what you say to him: he is neither 
barber, hair-dresser, nor wig-maker; he is a director 
of salons for hair-dressing,” said Leon, as they went 
up a staircase with crystal balusters and mahogany 
rail, the steps of which were covered with a sumptuous 
carpet. 

“ Ah ga! mind you don’t compromise us,” said 
Bixiou. “In the antechamber you’ll see lacqueys 
who will take off your coat, and seize your hat, to 
brush them; and they’ll accompany you to the door 
of the salons to open and shut it. I mention this, 
friend Gazonal,” added Bixiou, slyly, “ lest you 
might think they were after your property, and cry 
‘ Stop thief ! ’ ” 

“ These salons,” said Leon, “ are three boudoirs 
where the director has collected all the inventions of 
modern luxury: lambrequins to the windows, jardi- 
nieres everywhere, downy divans where each customer 


Unconscious Comedians. 


241 


can wait his turn and read the newspapers. You 
might suppose, when you first go in, that five francs 
would be the least they ’d get out of your waistcoat 
pocket; but nothing is ever extracted beyond ten sous 
for combing and frizzing your hair, or twenty sous 
for cutting and frizzing. Elegant dressing-tables 
stand about among the jardinieres; water is laid on to 
the washstands ; enormous mirrors reproduce the whole 
figure. Therefore don’t look astonished. When the 
client (that ’s the elegant word substituted by Marius 
for the ignoble "word customer ), — when the client 
appears at the door, Marius gives him a glance which 
appraises him : to Marius you are a head , more or less 
susceptible of occupying his mind. To him there ’s 
no mankind; there are only heads.” 

“We let you hear Marius on all the notes of his 
scale,” said Bixiou, “and you know how to follow 
our lead.” 

As soon as Gazonal showed himself, the glance was 
given, and was evidently favorable, for Marius 
exclaimed: “Regulus! yours this head! Prepare it 
first with the little scissors.” 

“Excuse me,” said Gazonal to the pupil, at a sign 
from Bixiou. “I prefer to have my head dressed by 
Monsieur Marius himself.” 

Marius, much flattered by this demand, advanced, 
leaving the head on which he was engaged. 

16 


242 


Unconscious Comedians. 


“X am with you in a moment; I am just finishing. 
Pray have no uneasiness, my pupil will prepare you ; 
I alone will decide the cut.” 

Marius, a slim little man, his hair frizzed like that 
of Rubini, and jet black, dressed also in black, with 
long white cuffs, and the frill of his shirt adorned 
with a diamond, now saw Bixiou, to whom he bowed 
as to a power the equal of his own. 

“That is only an ordinary head,” he said to Leon, 
pointing to the person on'whom he was operating, — “a 
grocer, or something of that kind. But if we devoted 
ourselves to art only, we should die in Bic§tre, mad! ” 
and he turned back with an inimitable gesture to his 
client, after saying to Regulus, “Prepare monsieur, 
he is evidently an artist.” 

“A journalist,” said Bixiou. 

Hearing that word, Marius gave two or three strokes 
of the comb to the ordinary head and flung himself 
upon Gazonal, taking Regulus by the arm at the instant 
that the pupil was about to begin the operation of the 
little scissors. 

“I will take charge of monsieur. Look, monsieur,” 
he said to the grocer, “reflect yourself in the great 
mirror — if the mirror permits. Ossian! ” 

A lacquey entered, and took hold of the client to 
dress him. 

“You pay at the desk, monsieur,” said Marius 


Unconscious Comedians. 


243 


to the stupefied grocer, who was pulling out his 
purse. 

“Is there any use, my dear fellow, ” said Bixiou, “in 
going through this operation of the little scissors? ” 

“No head ever comes to me uncleansed, ” replied 
the illustrious hair-dresser; “but for your sake, I will 
do that of monsieur myself, wholly. My pupils sketch 
out the scheme, or my strength would not hold out. 
Every one says as you do: ‘Dressed by Marius!* 
Therefore, I can give only the finishing strokes. 
What journal is monsieur on?” 

“If I were you, I should keep three or four 
Mariuses,” said Gazonal. 

“Ah! monsieur, I see, is a feuilletonist,” said 
Marius. “Alas! in dressing heads which expose us 
to notice it is impossible. Excuse me!” 

He left Gazonal to overlook Regulus, who was “ pre- 
paring ” a newly arrived head. Tapping his tongue 
against his palate, he made a disapproving noise, which 
may perhaps be written down as “titt, titt, titt.” 

“There, there! good heavens! that cut is not 
square; your scissors are hacking it. Here! see 
there! Regulus, you are not clipping poodles; these 
are men — who have a character; if you continue to 
look at the ceiling instead of looking only between the 
glass and the head, you will dishonor my house.’* 

“You are stern, Monsieur Marius.” 


244 


Unconscious Comedians . 


“I owe them the secrets of my art.” 

“Then it is an art?” said Gazonal. 

Marius, affronted, looked at Gazonal in the glass, 
and stopped short, the scissors in one hand, the comb 
in the other. 

“Monsieur, you speak like a — child! and yet, from 
your accent, I judge you are from the South, the birth- 
place of men of genius.” 

“Yes, I know that hair-dressing requires some 
taste,” replied Gazonal. 

“Hush, monsieur, hush! I expected better things 
of you. Let me tell you that a hair-dresser, — I don’t 
say a good hair-dresser, for a man is, or he is not, a 
hair-dresser, — a hair-dresser, I repeat, is more diffi- 
cult to find than — what shall I say ? than — I don’t 
know what — a minister? — (Sit still!) No, for you 
can’t judge by ministers, the streets are full of them. 
A Paganini? No, he’s not great enough. A hair- 
dresser, monsieur, a man who divines your soul and 
your habits, in order to dress your hair conformably 
with your being, that man has all that constitutes a 
philosopher — and such he is. See the women! 
Women appreciate us; they know our value; our value 
to them is the conquest they make when they have 
placed their heads in our hands to attain a triumph. 
I say to you that a hair-dresser — the world does not 
know what he is. I who speak to you, I am very 


Unconscious Comedians. 


245 


nearly all that there is of — without boasting I may say 
I am known — Still, I think more might be done — The 
execution, that is everything! Ah! if women would 
only give me carte blanche l — if I might only execute 
the ideas that come to me! I have, you see, a hell of 
imagination! — but the women don’t fall in with it; 
they have their own plans; they ’ll stick their fingers 
or combs, as soon as my back is turned, through the 
most delicious edifices — which ought to be engraved 
and perpetuated ; for our works, monsieur, last unfor- 
tunately but a few hours. A great hair-dresser, hey! 
he ’s like Careme and Vestris in their careers. (Head 
a little this way, if you please, so; I attend particu- 
larly to front faces!) Our profession is ruined by 
bunglers who understand neither the epoch nor their 
art. There are dealers in wigs and essences who are 
enough to make one’s hair stand on end; they care 
only to sell you bottles. It is pitiable ! - Bu^t that ’s 
business. Such poor wretches cut hair and dress it as 
they can. I, when I arrived in Paris from Toulouse, 
my ambition was to succeed the great Marius, to be 
a true Marius, to make that name illustrious. I 
alone, more than all the four others, I said to myself, 
4 1 will conquer, or die.’ (There! now sit straight, I 
am going to finish you.) I was the first to introduce 
elegance ; I made my salons the object of curiosity. I 
disdain advertisements; what advertisements would 


246 


Unconscious Comedians . 


have cost, monsieur, I put into elegance, charm, com- 
fort. Next year I shall have a quartette in one of the 
salons to discourse music, and of the best. Yes, we 
ought to charm away the ennui of those whose heads 
we dress. I do not conceal from myself the annoy- 
ances to a client. (Look at yourself !) To have one’s 
hair dressed is fatiguing, perhaps as much so as pos- 
ing for one’s portrait. Monsieur knows perhaps that 
the famous Monsieur Humboldt (I did the best I 
could with the few hairs America left him — science 
has this in common with savages, that she scalps her 
men clean), that illustrious savant , said that next to 
the suffering of going to be hanged was that of going 
to be painted; but I place the trial of having your 
head dressed before that of being painted, and so do 
certain women. Well, monsieur, my object is to 
make those who come here to have their hair cut 
or frizzed enjoy themselves. (Hold still, you have a 
tuft which must be conquered.) A Jew proposed to 
supply me with Italian cantatrices who, during the in- 
terludes, were to depilate the young men of forty ; but 
they proved to be girls from the Conservatoire, and 
music-teachers from the Rue Montmartre. There 
you are, monsieur; your head is dressed as that of a 
man of talent ought to be. Ossian,” he said to the 
lacquey in livery, “dress monsieur and show him out. 
Whose turn next?” he added proudly, gazing round 
upon the persons who awaited him. 


Unconscious Comedians . 


247 


“Don’t laugh, Gazonal,” said Leon as they reached 
the foot of the staircase, whence his eye could take in 
the whole of the Place de la Bourse. “I see over 
there one of our great men, and you shall compare his 
language with that of the barber, and tell me which of 
the two you think the most original.” 

“Don’t laugh, Gazonal,” said Bixiou, mimicking 
Leon’s intonation. “What do you suppose is 
Marius’s business?” 

“ Hair-dressing.” 

“He has obtained a monopoly of the sale of hair in 
bulk, as a certain dealer in comestibles who is going 
to sell us a jjdte for three francs has acquired a mon- 
opoly of the sale of truffles; he discounts the paper of 
that business ; he loans money oh pawn to clients when 
embarrassed; he gives annuities on lives; he gambles 
at the Bourse; he is a stockholder in all the fashion 
papers; and he sells, under the name of a certain 
chemist, an infamous drug which, for his share alone, 
gives him an income of thirty thousand francs, and 
costs in advertisements a hundred thousand yearly.” 

“Is it possible! ” cried Gazonal. 

“Remember this,” said Bixiou, gravely B “In Paris 
there is no such thing as a small business; all things 
swell to large proportions, down to the sale of rags 
and matches. The lemonade-seller who, with his 
napkin under his arm, meets you as you enter his 


248 


Unconscious Comedians. 


shop, may be worth his fifty thousand francs a year; 
the waiter in a restaurant is eligible for the Chamber; 
the man you take for a beggar in the street carries a 
hundred thousand francs worth of unset diamonds in 
his waistcoat pocket, and didn’t steal them either.” 

The three inseparables (for one day at any rate) 
now crossed the Place de la Bourse in a way to inter- 
cept a man about forty years of age, wearing the 
Legion of honor, who was coming from the boulevard 
by way of the rue Neuve-Vivienne. 

“Hey ! ” said Leon, “what are you pondering over, 
my dear Dubourdieu? Some fine symbolic composi- 
tion? My dear cousin, I have the pleasure to present 
to you our illustrious painter Dubourdieu, not less 
celebrated for his humanitarian convictions than for 
his talents in art. Dubourdieu, my cousin Palafox.” 

Dubourdieu, a small, pale man with melancholy blue 
eyes, bowed slightly to Gazonal, who bent low as 
before a man of genius. 

“So you have elected Stidmann in place of — ” he 
began. 

“How could I help it? I was n’t there,” replied 
Lora. 

“You bring the Academy into disrepute,” continued 
the painter. “To choose such a man as that ! I don’t 
wish to say ill of him, but he works at a trade. 
Where are you dragging the first of arts, — the art whose 


Unconscious Comedians. 249 

works are the most lasting; bringing nations to light 
of which the world has long lost even the memory; an 
art which crowns and consecrates great men? Yes, 
sculpture is priesthood; it preserves the ideas of an 
epoch, and you give its chair to a maker of toys and 
mantelpieces, an ornamentationist, a seller of bric-a- 
brac ! Ah ! as Chamfort said, one has to swallow a 
viper every morning to endure the life of Paris. Well, 
at any rate, Art remains to a few of us; they can’t 
prevent us from cultivating it — ” 

“And besides, my dear fellow, you have a consola- 
tion which few artists possess; the future is yours,” 
said Bixiou. “When the world is converted to our 
doctrine, you will be at the head of your art; for you 
are putting into it ideas which people will understand 
— ■ when they are generalized ! In fifty years from now 
you ’ll be to all the world what you are to a few of us 
at this moment, — a great man. The only question is 
how to get along till then.” 

“I have just finished,” resumed the great artist, his 
face expanding like that of a man whose hobby is 
stroked, “an allegorical figure of Harmony; and if you 
will come and see it, you will understand why it should 
have taken me two years to paint it. Everything is 
in it ! At the first glance one divines the destiny of 
the globe. A queen holds a' shepherd’s crook in her 
hand, — symbolical of the advancement of the races 


250 


Unconscious Comedians. 


useful to mankind; she wears on her head the cap 
of Liberty; her breasts are sixfold, as the Egyptians 
carved them — for the Egyptians foresaw Fourier; 
her feet are resting on two clasped hands which 
embrace a globe, — symbol of the brotherhood of all 
human races ; she tramples cannon under foot to sig- 
nify the abolition of war; and I have tried to make her 
face express the serenity of triumphant agriculture. 
I have also placed beside her an enormous curled cab- 
bage, which, according to our 'master, is an image of 
Harmony. Ah! it is not the least among Fourier’s 
titles to veneration that he has restored the gift of 
thought to plants; he has bound all creation in one 
by the signification of things to one another, and by 
their special language. A hundred years hence this 
earth will be much larger than it is now.” 

“And how will that, monsieur, come to pass? ” said 
Gazonal, stupefied at hearing a man outside of a 
lunatic asylum talk in this way. 

“Through the extending of production. If men will 
apply The System, it will not be impossible to act 
upon the stars.” 

“What would become of painting in that case?” 
asked Gazonal. 

“It would be magnified.” 

“Would our eyes be magnified too?” said Gazonal, 
looking at his two friends significantly. 


Unconscious Comedians. 


251 


“Man will return to what he was before he became 
degenerate; our six-feet men will then be dwarfs. ” 

“Is your picture finished? ” asked Leon. 

“Entirely finished,” replied Dubourdieu. “I have 
tried to see Hiclar, and get him to compose a sym- 
phony for it ; I wish that while viewing my picture the 
public should hear music d la Beethoven to develop 
its ideas and bring them within range of the intellect 
by two arts. Ah ! if the government would only lend 
me one of the galleries of the Louvre ! ” 

“I’ll mention it, if you want me to do so; you 
should never neglect an opportunity to strike minds.” 

“Ah! my friends are preparing articles; but lam 
afraid they ’ll go too far.” 

“Pooh ! ” said Bixiou, “they can’t go as far as the 
future.” 

Dubourdieu looked askance at Bixiou, and continued 
his way. 

“Why, he’s mad,” said Gazonal; “he is following 
the moon in her courses.” 

“His skill is masterly,” said Leon, “and he knows 
his art, but Fourierism has killed him. You have 
just seen, cousin, one of the effects of ambition upon 
artists. Too often, in Paris, from a desire to reach 
more rapidly than by natural ways the celebrity which 
to them is fortune, artists borrow the wings of circum- 
stance ; they think they make themselves of more im- 


252 


Unconscious Comedians . 


portance as men of a specialty, the supporters of some 
* system ; * and they fancy they can transform a clique 
into the public. One is a republican, another Saint- 
Simonian ; this one aristocrat, that one Catholic, others 
juste-milieu , middle ages, or German, as they choose 
for their purpose. Now, though opinions do not give 
talent, they always spoil what talent there is, and the 
poor fellow whom you have just seen is a proof 
thereof. An artist’s opinion ought to be: Faith in his 
art, in his work ; and his only way of success is toil 
when nature has given him the sacred fire.” 

“Let us get away,” said Bixiou. “Leon is begin- 
ning to moralize.” 

“But that man was sincere,” said Gazonal, still 
stupefied. 

“Perfectly sincere,” replied Bixiou; “as sincere as 
the king of barbers just now.” 

“He is mad! ” repeated Gazonal. 

“And he is not the first man driven mad by Fourier’s 
ideas,” said Bixiou. “You don’t know anything 
about Paris. Ask it for a hundred thousand francs to 
realize an idea that will be useful to humanity, — the 
steam-engine for instance, — and you ’ll die, like Salo- 
mon de Caux, at BicStre ; but if the money is wanted 
for some paradoxical absurdity, Parisians will anni- 
hilate themselves and their fortune for it. It is the 
same with systems as it is with material things. 


Unconscious Comedians . 


258 


Utterly impracticable newspapers have consumed mil- 
lions within the last fifteen years* What makes your 
lawsuit so hard to win, is that you have right on your 
side, and on that of the prefect there are (so you 
suppose) secret motives.” 

“ Do you think that a man of intellect having once 
understood the nature of Paris could live elsewhere?” 
said Leon to his cousin. 

“Suppose we take Gazonal to old Mere Fontaine? ” 
said Bixiou, making a sign to the driver of a citadine 
to draw up; “it will be a step from the real to the 
fantastic. Driver, Vieille rue du Temple.” 

And all three were presently rolling in the direction 
of the Marais. 

“What are you taking me to see now?” asked 
Gazonal. 

“The proof of what Bixiou told you,” replied Leon; 
“we shall show you a woman who makes twenty 
thousand francs a year by working a fantastic idea.” 

“A fortune-teller,” said Bixiou, interpreting the 
look of the Southerner as a question. “Madame 
Fontaine is thought, by those who seek to pry into 
the future, to be wiser in her wisdom than Made- 
moiselle Lenormand.” 

‘She must be very rich,” remarked Gazonal. 

“She was the victim of her own idea, as long as 
otteries existed,” said Bixiou; “for in Paris there are 


254 


Unconscious Comedians. 


no great gains without corresponding outlays. The 
strongest heads are liable to crack there, as if to give 
vent to their steam. Those who make much money 
have vices or fancies, — no doubt to establish an 
equilibrium.” 

“And now that the lottery is abolished?” asked 
Gazonal. 

“Oh! now she has a nephew for whom she is 
hoarding.” 

When they reached the Vieille rue du Temple the 
three friends entered one of the oldest houses in that 
street and passed up a shaking staircase, the steps of 
which, caked with mud, led them in semi-darkness, 
and through a stench peculiar to houses on an alley, 
to the third story, where they beheld a door which 
painting alone could render; literature would have to 
spend too many nights in suitably describing it. 

An old woman, in keeping with that door, and who 
might have been that door in human guise, ushered the 
three friends into a room which served as an ante- 
chamber, where, in spite of the warm atmosphere 
which fills the streets of Paris, they felt the icy chill 
of crypts about them. A damp air came from an inner 
courtyard which resembled a huge air-shaft; the light 
that entered was gray, and the sill of the window was 
filled with pots of sickly plants. In this room, which 
had a coating of some greasy, fuliginous substance, 


Unconscious Comedians. 


255 


the furniture, the chairs, the table, were all most 
abject. The floor tiles oozed like a water-cooler. 
In short, every accessory was in keeping with the 
fearful old woman of the hooked nose, ghastly face, 
and decent rags who directed the 5 ‘ consul ters ” to sit 
down, informing them that only one at a time could 
be admitted to Madame. 

Gazonal, who played the intrepid, entered bravely, 
and found himself in presence of one of those women 
forgotten by Death, who no doubt forgets them inten- 
tionally in order to leave some samples of Itself among 
the living. He saw before him a withered face in 
which shone fixed gray eyes of wearying immobility; 
a flattened nose, smeared with snuff; knuckle-bones 
well set up by muscles that, under pretence of being 
hands, played nonchalantly with a pack of cards, like 
some machine the movement of which is about to run 
down. The body, a species of broom-handle decently 
covered with clothes, enjoyed the advantages of death 
and did not stir. Above the forehead rose a coif of 
black velvet. Madame Fontaine, for it was really a 
woman, had a black hen on her right hand and a huge 
toad, named Astaroth, on her left. Gazonal did not at 
first perceive them. 

The toad, of surprising dimensions, was less 
alarming in himself than through the effect of two topaz 
eyes, large as a ten-sous piece, which cast forth vivid 


256 


Unconscious Comedians. 


gleams. It was impossible to endure that look. The 
toad is a creature as yet unexplained. Perhaps the 
whole animal creation, including man, is comprised 
in it; for, as Lassailly said, the toad exists indefinitely; 
and, as we know, it is of all created animals the one 
whose marriage lasts the longest. 

The black hen had a cage about two feet distant 
from the table, covered with a green cloth, to which 
she came along a plank which formed a sort of draw- 
bridge between the cage and the table. 

When the woman, the least real of the creatures in 
this Hoffmannesque den, said to Gazonal: “Cut!” 
the worthy provincial shuddered involuntarily. That 
which renders these beings so formidable is the im- 
portance of what we want to know. People go to 
them, as they know very well, to buy hope. 

The den of the sibyl was much darker than the ante- 
chamber ; the color of the walls could scarcely be dis- 
tinguished. The ceiling, blackened by smoke, far 
from reflecting the little light that came from a window 
obstructed by pale and sickly vegetations, absorbed 
the greater part of it ; but the table where the sorceress 
sat received what there was of this half-light fully. 
The table, the chair of the woman, and that on which 
Gazonal was seated, formed the entire furniture of the 
little room, which was divided at one end by a sort of 
loft where Madame Fontaine probably slept. Gazonal 


Unconscious Comedians. 


257 


heard through a half-opened door the bubbling murmur 
of a soup-pot. That kitchen sound, accompanied by 
a composite odor in which the effluvia of a sink pre- 
dominated, mingled incongruous ideas of the necessi- 
ties of actual life with those of supernatural power. 
Disgust entered into curiosity. 

Gazonal observed one stair of pine wood, the lowest 
no doubt of the staircase which led to the loft. He 
took in these minor details at a glance, with a sense of 
nausea. It was all quite otherwise alarming than the 
romantic tales and scenes of German drama lead one 
to expect; here was suffocating actuality. The air 
diffused a sort of dizzy heaviness, the dim light 
rasped the nerves. When the Southerner, impelled by 
a species of self-assertion, gazed firmly at the toad, he 
felt a sort of emetic heat at the pit of his stomach, 
and was conscious of a terror like that a criminal 
might feel in presence of a gendarme. He endeavored 
to brace himself by looking at Madame Fontaine; 
but there he encountered two almost white eyes, the 
motionless and icy pupils of which were absolutely 
intolerable to him. The silence became terrifying. 

“Which do you wish, monsieur, the five-franc for- 
tune, the ten-franc fortune, or the grand game? ” 

“The five-franc fortune is dear enough,” replied the 
Southerner, making powerful efforts not to yield to the 
influence of the surroundings in which he found himself. 

17 


258 


Unconscious Comedians. 


At the moment when Gazonal was thus endeavoring 
to collect himself, a voice — an infernal voice — made 
him bound in his chair; the black hen clucked. 

“Go back, my daughter, go back; monsieur chooses 
to spend only five francs.” 

The hen seemed to understand her mistress, for, 
after coming within a foot of the cards, she turned 
and resumed her former place. 

“What flower do you like best?” asked the old 
woman, in a voice hoarsened by the phlegm which 
seemed to rise and fall incessantly in her bronchial 
tubes. 

“The rose.” 

“What color are you fond of?” 

“Blue.” 

“What animal do you prefer?” 

“The horse. Why these questions? ” he asked. 

“Man derives his form from his anterior states,” 
she said sententiously. “Hence his instincts; and 
his instincts rule his destiny. What food do you like 
best to eat, — fish, game, cereals, butcher’s meat, sweet 
things, vegetables, or fruits? ” 

“Game.” 

“In what month were you born? ” 

“September.” 

“Put out your hand.” 

Madame Fontaine looked attentively at the lines of 


Unconscious Comedians. 


259 


the hand that was shown to her. It was all done seri- 
ously, with no pretence of sorcery; on the contrary, 
with the simplicity a notary might have shown when 
asking the intentions of a client about a deed. 
Presently she shuffled the cards, and asked Gazonal 
to cut them, and then to make three packs of them 
himself. After which she took the packs, spread 
them out before her, and examined them as a gambler 
examines the thirty-six numbers at roulette before he 
risks his stake. Gazonal’s bones were freezing; he 
seemed not to know where he was ; but his amazement 
grew greater and greater when this hideous old woman 
in a green bonnet, stout and squat, whose false front 
was frizzed into points of interrogation, proceeded, in 
a thick voice, to relate to him all the particular cir- 
cumstances, even the most secret, of his past life: she 
told him his tastes, his habits, his character; the 
thoughts of his childhood; everything that had influ- 
enced his life ; a marriage broken off, why, with whom, 
the exact description of the woman he had loved ; and, 
finally, the place he came from, his lawsuit, etc. 

Gazonal at first thought it a hoax prepared by his 
companions ; but the absolute impossibility of such a 
conspiracy appeared to him almost as soon as the idea 
itself, and he sat speechless before that truly infernal 
power, the incarnation of which borrowed from human- 
ity a form which the imagination of painters and poets 


260 Unconscious Comedians. 

has throughout all ages regarded as the most awful of 
created things, — namely, a toothless, hideous, wheez- 
ing hag, with cold lips, flattened nose, and whitish 
eyes. The pupils of those eyes had brightened, 
through them gushed a ray, — was it from the depths of 
the future or from hell? 

Gazonal asked, interrupting the old creature, of 
what use the toad and the hen were to her. 

“They predict the future. The consulter himself 
throws grain upon the cards; Bilouche comes and 
pecks it. Astaroth crawls over the cards to get the 
food the client holds for him, and those two wonder- 
ful intelligences are never mistaken. Will you see 
them at work ? — you will then know your future. The 
cost is a hundred francs.” 

Gazonal, horrified by the gaze of Astaroth, rushed 
into the antechamber, after bowing to the terrible old 
woman. He was moist from head to foot, as if under 
the incubation of some evil spirit. 

“Let us get away!” he said to the two artists. 
“Did you ever consult that sorceress? ” 

“I never do anything important without getting 
Astaroth’s opinion,” said Leon, “and I am always 
the better for it.” 

“I’m expecting the virtuous fortune which Bilouche 
has promised me,” said Bixiou. 

“I ’ve a fever,” cried Gazonal. “If I believed 


Unconscious Comedians . 


261 


what you say I should have to believe in sorcery, in 
some supernatural power.” 

“It may be only natural,” said Bixiou. “One- third 
of all the lorettes, one-fourth of all the statesmen, 
and one-half of all artists consult Madame Fontaine; 
and I know a minister to whom she is an Egeria.” 

“Did she tell you your future?” asked Leon. 

“No; I had enough of her about my past. But,” 
added Gazonal, struck by a sudden thought, “if she 
can, by the help of those dreadful collaborators, pre- 
dict the future, how came she to lose in the lottery?” 

“ Ah ! you put your finger on one of the greatest 
mysteries of occult science,” replied Leon. “The 
moment that the species of inward mirror on which 
the past or the future is reflected to their minds be- 
comes clouded by the breath of a personal feeling, by 
an idea foreign to the purpose of the power they are 
exerting, sorcerers and sorceresses can see nothing; 
just as an artist who blurs art with political combina- 
tions and systems loses his genius. Not long ago, 
a man endowed with the gift of divining by cards, a 
rival to Madame Fontaine, became addicted to vicious 
practices, and being unable to tell his own fate from 
the cards, was arrested, tried, and condemned at the 
court of assizes. Madame Fontaine, who predicts the 
future eight times out of ten, was never able to know 
if she would win or lose in a lottery.” 


262 


Unconscious Comedians. 


“It is the same thing in magnetism,” remarked 
Bixiou. “A man can’t magnetize himself.” 

“Heavens! now we come to magnetism!” cried 
Gazonal. “ Ah ga! do you know everything? ” 

“Friend Gazonal,” replied Bixiou, gravely, “to be 
able to laugh at everything one must know everything. 
As for me, I’ve been in Paris since my childhood; 
I ’ve lived, by means of my pencil, on its follies and 
absurdities, at the rate of five caricatures a month. 
Consequently, I often laugh at ideas in which I have 
faith.” 

“Come, let us get to something else,” said Leon. 
“We ‘11 go to the Chamber and settle the cousin’s 
affair.” 

“This,” said Bixiou, imitating Odry in “Les 
Funambules,” “is high comedy, for we will make the 
first orator we meet pose for us, and you shall see that 
in those halls of legislation, as elsewhere, the Parisian 
language has but two tones, — Self-interest, Vanity.” 

As they got into their citadine , Leon saw in a 
rapidly driven cabriolet a man to whom he made a 
sign that he had something to say to him. 

“There’s Publicola Masson,” said Leon to Bixiou. 
“I am going to ask for a sitting this evening at five 
o’clock, after the Chamber. The cousin shall then 
see the most curious of all the originals.” 

“Who is he?” asked Gazonal, while Leon went to 
speak to Publicola Masson. 


Unconscious Comedians . 


263 


“An artist-pedicure,” replied Bixiou, “author of a 
‘Treatise ou Corporistics, ’ who cuts your corns by 
subscription, and who, if the Republicans triumph 
for six months, will assuredly become immortal.” 

“Drives his carriage! ” ejaculated Gazonal. 

“But, my good Gazonal, it is only millionnaires who 
have time to go afoot in Paris.” 

“To the Chamber!” cried Leon to the coachman, 
getting back into the carriage. 

“Which, monsieur?” 

“Deputies,” replied Leon, exchanging a smile with 
Bixiou. 

“Paris begins to confound me,” said Gazonal. 

“To make you see its immensity, — moral, political 
and literary, — we are now proceeding like the Roman 
cicerone , who shows you in Saint Peter’s the thumb of 
the statue you took to be life-size, and the thumb 
proves to be a foot long. You haven’t yet measured 
so much as a great toe of Paris.” 

“And remark, cousin Gazonal, that we take things 
as they come; we haven’t selected.” 

“This evening you shall sup as they feasted at 
Belshazzar’s; and there you shall see our Paris, our 
own particular Paris, playing lansquenet , and risking 
a hundred thousand francs at a throw without 
winking.” 

A quarter of an hour later the citadine stopped at 


264 


Unconscious Comedians. 


the foot of the steps going up to the Chamber of 
Deputies, at that end of the Pont de la Concorde which 
leads to discord. 

“I thought the Chamber unapproachable? ” said the 
provincial, surprised to find himself in the great 
lobby. 

“That depends,” replied Bixiou; “materially speak- 
ing, it costs thirty sous for a citadine to approach it; 
politically, you have to spend rather more. The 
swallows thought, so a poet says, that the Arc de 
Triomphe was erected for them; we artists think that 
this public building was built for us, — to compensate 
for the stupidities of the Theatre-Franqais and make 
us laugh; but the comedians on this stage are much 
more expensive; and they don’t give us every day the 
value of our money.” 

“So this is the Chamber!” said Gazonal, as he 
paced the great hall in which there were then about 
a dozen persons, and looked around him with an air 
which Bixiou noted down in his memory and repro- 
duced in one of the famous caricatures with which he 
rivalled Gavarni. 1 

Leon went to speak to one of the ushers who go 
and come continually between this hall and the hall 
of sessions, with which it communicates by a passage 
in which are stationed the stenographers of the 
“Moniteur” and persons attached to the Chamber. 


Unconscious Comedians. 


265 


“As for the minister,” replied the usher to Leon as 
Gazonal approached them, “ he is there; but I don’t 
know if Monsieur Giraud has come. I ’ll see.” 

As the usher opened one side of the double door 
through which none but deputies, ministers, or mes- 
sengers from the king are allowed to pass, Gazonal 
saw a man come out who seemed still young, although 
he was really forty-eight years old. and to whom the 
usher evidently indicated L£on de Lora. 

“Ha! you here!” he exclaimed, shaking hands 
with both Bixiou and Lora. “ Scamps! what are you 
doing in the sanctuary of the laws ? ” 

“ Parbleu! we’ve come to learn how to blague” 
said Bixiou. “We might get rusty if we didn’t.” 

“ Let us go into the garden,” said the young man, 
not observing that Gazonal belonged to the party. 

Seeing that this new-comer was well-dressed, in 
black, the provincial did not know in which political 
category to place him ; but he followed the others into 
the garden contiguous to the hall which follows the 
line of the quai Napoleon. Once in the garden the 
ci-devant young man gave way to a peal of laughter 
which he seemed to have been repressing since he 
entered the lobby. 

“What is it? ” asked Leon de Lora. 

, m 

“ My dear friend, to prove the sincerity of the con- 
stitutional government we are forced to tell the most 


266 


Unconscious Comedians . 


frightful lies with incredible self-possession. But as 
for me, I ’m freakish ; some days I can lie like a pro- 
spectus; other days I can’t be serious. This is one 
of my hilarious days. Now, at this moment, the 
prime minister, being summoned by the Opposition 
to make known a certain diplomatic secret, is going 
through his paces in the tribune. Being an honest 
man who never lies on his own account, he whis- 
pered to me as he mounted the breach: ‘ Heaven 
knows what I shall say to them.’ A mad desire to 
laugh overcame me, and as one mustn’t laugh on the 
ministerial bench I rushed out, for my youth does 
come back to me most -unseasonably at times.” 

“At last,” cried Gazonal, “I’ve found an honest 
man in Paris! You must be a very superior man,” 
he added, looking at the stranger. 

“ Ah ga! who is this gentleman?” said the ci- 
devant young man, examining Gazonal. 

“ My cousin,” said Leon, hastily. “ I ’ll answer for 
his silence and his honor as for my own. It is on 
his account we have come here now; he has a case 
before the administration which depends on your 
ministry. His prefect evidently wants to ruin him, 
and we have come to see you in order to prevent the 
Council of State from ratifying a great injustice.” 

“ Who brings up the case?” 

“Massol.” 


Unconscious Comedians. 


267 


“Good.” 

“And our friends Giraud and Claude Vignon are 
on the committee,” said Bixiou. 

“Say just a word to them,” urged Leon; “tell 
them to come to-night to Carabine’s, where du Tillet 
gives a fete apropos of railways, — they are plunder- 
ing more than ever on the roads.” 

“ Ah ga! but is n’t your cousin from the Pyrenees?” 
asked the young man, now become serious. 

“Yes,” replied Gazonal. 

“ And you did not vote for us in the last elections?” 
said the statesman, looking hard at Gazonal. 

“No; but what you have just said in my hearing 
has bribed me ; on the word of a commandant of the 
National Guard I ’ll have your candidate elected — ” 

“Very good; will you guarantee your cousin?” 
asked the young man, turning to Leon. 

“We are forming him,” said Bixiou, in a tone irre- 
sistibly comic. 

“Well, I’ll see about it,” said the young man, 
leaving his friends and rushing precipitately back to 
the Chamber. 

“ Who is that? ” saked Gazonal. 

“The Comte de Rastignac; the 'minister of the 
department in which your affair is brought up.” 

“ A minister! Is n’t a minister anything more than 
that? ” 


268 


Unconscious Comedians. 


“ He is an old friend of ours. He now has three 
hundred thousand francs a year : he ’s a peer of France ; 
the king has made him a count; he married Nucingen’s 
daughter; and he is one of the two or three statesmen 
produced by the revolution of July. But his fame 
and his power bore him sometimes, and he comes down 
to laugh with us.” 

“ Ah ga! cousin; why didn’t you tell us you 
belonged to the Opposition?” asked Leon, seizing 
Gazonal by the arm. “ How stupid of you ! One 
deputy more or less to Right or Left and your bed is 
made.” 

“We are all for the Others down my way.” 

“Let ’em go,” said Bixiou, with a facetious look; 
“they have Providence on their side, and Providence 
will bring them back without you and in spite of 
themselves. A manufacturer ought to be a fatalist.” 

“What luck! There’s Maxime, with Canalis and 
Giraud,” said Leon. 

“ Come along, friend Gazonal, the promised actors 
are mustering on the stage,” said Bixiou. 

And all three advanced to the above-named person- 
ages, who seemed to be sauntering along with nothing 
to do. 

“ Have they turned you out, or why are you idling 
about in this way? ” said Bixiou to Giraud. 

“ No, while they are voting by secret ballot we have 
come out for a little air,” replied Giraud. 


Unconscious Comedians. 


269 


“ How did the prime minister pull through? ” 

“ He was magnificent! ” said Canalis. 

“Magnificent! ” repeated Maxime. 

“Magnificent! ” cried Giraud. 

“ So ! so ! Right, Left, and Centre are unanimous ! ” 

“All with a different meaning,” observed Maxime 
de Trailles. 

Maxime was the ministerial deputy. 

“Yes,” said Canalis, laughing. 

Though Canalis had already been a minister, he 
was at this moment tending toward the Right. 

“Ah! but you had a fine triumph just now,” said 
Maxime to Canalis; “ it was you who forced the min- 
ister into the tribune.” 

“And made him lie like a charlatan,” returned 
Canalis. 

“A worthy victory,” said the honest Giraud. “In 
his place what would you have done ? ” 

“ I should have lied.” 

“It isn’t called lying,” said Maxime de Trailles; 
“it is called protecting the crown.” 

So saying, he led Canalis away to a little distance. 

“That’s a great orator,” said Leon to Giraud, 
pointing to Canalis. 

“ Yes and no,” replied the councillor of state. “ A 
fine bass voice, and sonorous, but more of an artist in 
words than an orator. In short, he ’s a fine instrument 


270 


Unconscious Comedians . 


but he is n’t music, consequently he has not, and he 
never will have, the ear of the Chamber ; in no case 
will he ever be master of the situation.” 

Canalis and Maxime were returning toward the 
little group as Giraud, deputy of the Left Centre, pro- 
nounced this verdict. Maxime took Giraud by the 
arm and led him off, probably to make the same confi- 
dence he had just made Canalis. 

“ What an honest, upright fellow that is,” said Leon 
to Canalis, nodding toward Giraud. 

“One of those upright fellows who kill administra- 
tions,” replied Canalis. 

“ Do you think him a good orator? ” 

“ Yes and no,” replied Canalis; “ he is wordy; he ’s 
long-winded, a plodder in argument, and a good 
logician; but he does n’t understand the higher logic, 
that of events and circumstances; consequently he 
has never had, and never will have, the ear of the 
Chamber .” 

At the moment when Canalis uttered this judgment 
on Giraud, the latter was returning with Maxime to 
the group ; and forgetting the presence of a stranger 
whose discretion was not known to them like that of 
Leon and Bixiou, he took Canalis by the hand in a 
very significant manner. 

“Well,” he said, “I consent to what Monsieur de 
Trailles proposes. I ’ll put the question to you in the 
Chamber, but I shall do it with great severity.” 


Unconscious Comedians. 


271 


“Then we shall have the house with us, for a man 
of your weight and your eloquence is certain to have 
the ear of the Chamber ,” said Canalis. “ I ’ll reply 
to you; but I shall do it sharply, to crush you.” 

“ You could bring about a change of the cabinet, 
for on such ground you can do what you like with the 
Chamber, and be master of the situation .” 

“ Maxime has trapped them both,” said Leon to his 
cousin; “ that fellow is like a fish in water among the 
intrigues of the Chamber.” 

“ Who is he? ” asked Gazonal. 

“An ex-scoundrel who is now in a fair way to 
become an ambassador,” replied Bixiou. 

“Giraud!” said Leon to the councillor of state, 
“ don’t leave the Chamber without asking Rastignac 
what he promised me to tell you about a suit you are 
to render a decision on two days hence. It concerns 
my cousin here ; I ’ll go and see you to-morrow morn- 
ing early about it.” 

The three friends followed the three deputies, at a 
distance, into the lobby. 

“ Cousin, look at those two men,” said Leon, point- 
ing out to him a former minister and the leader of the 
Left Centre. “ Those are two men who really have 
‘ the ear of the Chamber, ’ and who are called in jest 
ministers of the department of the Opposition. They 
have the ear of the Chamber so completely that they 
are always pulling it.” 


272 


Unconscious Comedians . 


“ It is four o’clock,” said Bixiou, “ let us go back to 
the rue de Berlin.” 

“Yes; you’ve now seen the heart of the govern- 
ment, cousin, and you must next be shown the asca- 
rides, the taenia, the intestinal worm, — the republican, 
since I must needs name him,” said Leon. 

When the three friends were once more packed into 
their hackney-coach, Gazonal looked at his cousin and 
Bixiou like a man who had a mind to launch a flood 
of oratorical and Southern bile upon the elements. 

“I distrusted with all my might this great hussy 
of a town,” he rolled out i%Southern accents; “but 
since this morning I despise her! The poor little 
province you think so petty is an honest girl; but 
Paris is a prostitute, a greedy, lying comedian ; and I 
am very thankful not to be robbed of my skin in it.” 

“The day is not over yet,” said Bixiou, sententi- 
ously, winking at Leon. 

“And why do you complain in that stupid way,” 
said Leon, “of a prostitution to which you will owe 
the winning of your lawsuit? Do you think you are 
more virtuous than we, less of a comedian, less greedy, 
less liable to fall under some temptation, less con- 
ceited than those we have been making dance for you 
like puppets ? ” 

“Try me!” 

“Poor lad!” said Leon, shrugging his shoulders, 


Unconscious Comedians . 


273 


“ have n’t you already promised Kastignac your elec- 
toral influence? ” 

“ Yes, because he was the only one who ridiculed 
himself.” 

“Poor lad!” repeated Bixiou, “why slight me, who 
am always ridiculing myself? You are like a 
pug-dog barking at a tiger. Ha ! if you saw us 
really ridiculing a man, you ’d see that we can drive a 
sane man mad.” 

This conversation brought Gazonal back to his 
cousin’s house, where the sight of luxury silenced him, 
and put an end to the discussion. Too late he per- 
ceived that Bixiou had been making him pose . 

At half-past five o’clock, the moment when Leon de 
Lora was making his evening toilet to the great 
wonderment of Gazonal, who counted the thousand 
and one superfluities of his cousin, and admired the 
solemnity of the valet as he performed his functions, 
the “ pedicure of monsieur ” was announced, and Pub- 
licola Masson, a little man fifty years of age, made 
his appearance, laid a small box of instruments on the 
floor, and sat down on a small chair opposite to Le'on, 
after bowing to Gazonal and Bixiou. 

“How are matters going with you?” asked Leon, 
delivering to Publicola one of his feet, already washed 
and prepared by the valet. 

“I am forced to take two pupils, — two young 
18 


274 


Unconscious Comedians. 


fellows who, despairing of fortune, have quitted surgery 
for corporistics ; they were actually dying of hunger; 
and yet they are full of talent.” 

“ I ’m not asking you about pedestrial affairs, I 
want to know how you are getting on politically.” 

Masson gave a glance at Gazonal, more eloquent 
than any species of question. 

“Oh! you can speak out, that’s my cousin; in a 
way he belongs to you; he thinks himself legitimist.” 

“Well! we are coming along, we are advancing! 
In five years from now Europe will be with us. Switz- 
erland and Italy are fermenting finely ; and when the oc- 
casion comes we are all ready. Here, in Paris, we have 
fifty thousand armed men, without counting two hundred 
thousand citizens who have n’t a penny to live upon.” 

“ Pooh,” said Leon, “ how about the fortifications? ” 

“ Pie-crust; we can swallow them,” replied Masson. 

“In the first place, we sha’n’t let the cannon in, 
and, in the second, we ’ve got a little machine more 
powerful than all the forts in the world, — a machine, 
due to a doctor, which cured more people during the 
short time we worked it than the doctors ever killed.” 

“How you talk!” exclaimed Gazonal, whose flesh 
began to creep at Publicola’s air and manner. 

“Ha! that’s the thing we rely on! We follow 
Saint- Just and Robespierre; but we ’ll do better than 
they; they were timid, and you see what came of it; 


Unconscious Comedians. 275 

an emperor! the elder branch! the younger branch! 
The Montagnards did n’t lop the social tree enough.” 

“Ah gaf you, who will be, they tell me, consul, or 
something of that kind, tribune perhaps, be good 
enough to remember,” said Bixiou, “ that I have 
asked your protection for the last dozen years.” 

“No harm shall happen to you; we shall need wags, 
and you can take the place of Barere,” replied the 
corn-doctor. 

“ And I? ” said Leon. 

“Ah, you! you are my client, and that will save 
you; for genius is an odious privilege, to which too 
much is accorded in France; we shall be forced to 
annihilate some of our greatest men in order to teach 
others to be simple citizens.” 

The corn-cutter spoke with a semi-serious, semi- 
jesting air that made Gazonal shudder. 

“ So,” he said, “ there ’s to be no more religion? ” 

“No more religion of the state,” replied the pedi- 
cure, emphasizing the last words; “ every man will 
have his own. It is very fortunate that the govern- 
ment is just now endowing convents ; they ’ll provide 
our funds. Everything, you see, conspires in our 
favor. Those who pity the peoples, who clamor 
in behalf of proletaries, who write works against 
the Jesuits, who busy themselves about the ameliora- 
tion of no matter what, — the communists, the human- 


276 


Unconscious Comedians. 


itarians, the philanthropists, you understand, — all 
those people are our advanced guard. While we are 
storing gunpowder, they are making the tinder which 
the spark of a single circumstance will ignite.” 

“But what do you expect will make the happiness 
of France?” cried Gazonal. 

“Equality of citizens and cheapness of provisions. 
We mean that there shall be no persons lacking any- 
thing, no millionnaires, no suckers of blood and 
victims.” 

“That’s it! — maximum and minimum,” said 
Gazonal. 

“You’ve said it,” replied the corn-cutter, deci- 
sively. 

“ No more manufacturers? ” asked Gazonal. 

“The state will manufacture. We shall all be the 
usufructuaries of France; each will have his ration as 
on board ship ; and all the world will work according 
to their capacity.” 

“ Ah!” said Gazonal, “and while awaiting the time 
when you can cut off the heads of aristocrats — ” 

“ I cut their nails,” said the radical republican, 
putting up his tools and finishing the jest himself. 

Then he bowed very politely and went away. 

“ Can this be possible in 1845? ” cried Gazonal. 

“If there were time we could show you,” said his 
cousin, “ all the personages of 1793, and you could 


Unconscious Comedians. 


277 


talk with them. You have just seen Marat; well! we 
knowFouquier-Tiuville, Collot d’Herbois, Robespierre, 
Chabot, Fouche, Barras; there is even a magnificent 
Madame Roland. ” 

44 Well, the tragic is not lacking to your play,” said 
Gazonal. 

44 It is six o’clock. Before we take you to see Odry 
in 4 Les Saltimbanques ’ to-night,” said Leon to 
Gazonal, 44 we must go and pay a visit to Madame 
Cadine, — an actress whom your committee-man Massol 
cultivates, and to whom you must therefore pay the 
most assiduous court.” 

44 And as it is all important that you conciliate that 
power, I am going to give you a few instructions,” 
said Bixiou. 44 Do you employ workwomen in your 
manufactory? ” 

44 Of course I do,” replied Gazonal. 

44 That’s all I want to know,” resumed Bixiou. 
44 You are not married, and you are a great — ” 

44 Yes!” cried Gazonal, “you’ve guessed my strong 
point, I ’m a great lover of women.” 

44 Well, then! if you will execute the little manoeuvre 
which I am about to prescribe for you, you will taste, 
without spending a farthing, the sweets to be found 
in the good graces of an actress.” 

When they reached the rue de la Victoire where the 
celebrated actress lived, Bixiou, who meditated a trick 


278 


Unconscious Comedians. 


upon the distrustful provincial, had scarcely finished 
teaching him his role; but Gazonal was quick, as we 
shall see, to take a hint. 

The three friends went up to the second floor of a 
rather handsome house, and found Madame Jenny 
Cadine just finishing dinner, for she played that night 
in an afterpiece at the Gymnase. Having presented 
Gazonal to this great power, Leon and Bixiou, in 
order to leave them alone together, made the excuse 
of looking at a piece of furniture in another room; 
but before leaving, Bixiou had whispered in the actress’s 
ear: “ He is Leon’s cousin, a manufacturer, enormously 
rich; he wants to win a suit before the Council of 
State against his prefect, and he thinks it wise to fas- 
cinate you in order to get Massol on his side.” 

All Paris knows the beauty of that young actress, 
and will therefore understand the stupefaction of the 
Southerner on seeing her. Though she had received 
him at first rather coldly, he became the object of her 
good graces before they had been many minutes alone 
together. 

“How strange! ” said Gazonal, looking round him 
disdainfully on the furniture of the salon, the door of 
w r hich his accomplices had left half open, “ that a 
woman like you should be allowed to live in such 
an ill-furnished apartment.” 

“Ah, yes, indeed! but how can I help it? Massol 
is not rich; I am hoping he will be made a minister.” 


Unconscious Comedians. 


279 


“ What a happy man ! ” cried Gazonal, heaving the 
sigh of a provincial. 

“Good!” thought she. “I shall have new furni- 
ture, and get the better of Carabine.” 

“ Well, my dear! ” said Leon, returning, “ you ’ll 
be sure to come to Carabine’s to-night, won’t you? — 
supper and lansquenet” 

“Will monsieur be there?” said Jenny Cadine, 
looking artlessly and graciously at Gazonal. 

“Yes, madame,” replied the countryman, dazzled 
by such rapid success. 

“ But Massol will be there,” said Bixiou. 

“Well, what of that?” returned Jenny. “Come, 
we must part, my treasures; I must go to the theatre.” 

Gazonal gave his hand to the actress, and led her to 
the citadine which was waiting for her; as he did so 
he pressed hers with such ardor that Jenny Cadine 
exclaimed, shaking her fingers : “ Take care ! I have n’t 
any others.” 

When the three friends got back into their own 
vehicle, Gazonal endeavored to seize Bixiou round 
the waist, crying out: “She bites! You’re a fine 
rascal ! ” 

“ So women say,” replied Bixiou. 

At half-past eleven o’clock, after the play, another 
citadine took the trio to the house of Mademoiselle 
Seraphine Sinet, better known under the name of 


280 


Unconscious Comedians. 


Carabine, — one of those pseudonyms which famous 
lorettes take, or which are given to them; a name 
which, in this instance, may have referred to the 
pigeons she had killed. 

Carabine, now become almost a necessity for the 
banker du Tillet, deputy of the Left, lived in a charm- 
ing house in the rue Saint-Georges. In Paris there 
are many houses the destination of which never varies ; 
and the one we now speak of had already seen seven 
careers of courtesans. A broker had brought there, 
about the year 1827, Suzanne du Val-Noble, after- 
wards Madame Gaillard. In that house the famous 
Esther caused the Baron de Nucingen to commit the 
only follies of his life. Florine, and, subsequently, a 
person now called in jest “ the late Madame Schontz,” 
had scintillated there in turn. Bored by his wife, 
du Tillet bought this modern little house, and there 
installed the celebrated Carabine, whose lively wit 
and cavalier manners and shameless brilliancy were a 
counterpoise to the dulness of domestic life, and the 
toils of finance and politics. 

Whether du Tibet or Carabine were at home or not 
at home, supper was served, and splendidly served, 
for ten persons every day. Artists, men of letters, 
journalists, and the habitues of the house supped there 
when they pleased. After supper they gambled. 
More than one member of both Chambers came there 


Unconscious Comedians. 281 

to buy what Paris pays for by its weight in gold, — 
namely, the amusement of intercourse with anomalous 
untrammelled women, those meteors of the Parisian 
firmament who are so difficult to class. There wit 
reigns; for all can be said, and all is said. Cara- 
bine, a rival of the no less celebrated Malaga, had 
finally inherited the salon of Florine, now Madame 
Raoul Nathan, and of Madame Schontz, now wife of 
Chief-justice du Ronceret. 

As he entered, Gazonal made one remark only, but 
that remark was both legitimate and legitimist: “It 
is finer than the Tuileries ! ” The satins, velvets, 
brocades, the gold, the objects of art that swarmed 
there, so filled the eyes of the wary provincial that at 
first he did not see Madame Jenny Cadine, in a toilet 
intended to inspire respect, who, concealed behind 
Carabine, watched his entrance observingly, while con- 
versing with others. 

“My dear child,” said Leon to Carabine, “this is 
my cousin, a manufacturer, who descended upon me 
from the Pyrenees this morning. He knows nothing 
of Paris, and he wants Massol to help him in a suit 
he has before the Council of State. We have there- 
fore taken the liberty to bring him — his name is 
Gazonal — to supper, entreating you to leave him his 
full senses.” 

“That’s as monsieur pleases; wine is dear,” said 


282 


Unconscious Comedians. 


Carabine, looking Gazonal over from bead to foot, and 
thinking him in no way remarkable. 

Gazonal, bewildered by the toilets, the lights, the 
gilding, the chatter of the various groups whom he 
thought to be discussing him, could only manage to 
stammer out the words : “ Madame — madame — is — 
very good.” 

“ What do you manufacture?” said the mistress of 
the house, laughing. 

“ Say laces and offer her some guipure,” whispered 
Bixiou in Gazonal’ s ear. 

“La-ces,” said Gazonal, perceiving that he would 
have to pay for his supper. “ It will give me the 
greatest pleasure to offer you a dress — a scarf — a 
mantilla of my make.” 

“Ah, three things! Well, you are nicer than you 
look to be,” returned Carabine. 

“Paris has caught me!” thought Gazonal, now 
perceiving Jenny Cadine, and going up to her. 

“ And I,” said the actress, “ what am I to have? ” 

“All I possess,” replied Gazonal, thinking that to 
offer all was to give nothing. 

Massol, Claude Yignon, du Tillet, Maxime de 
Trailles, Nucingen, du Bruel, Malaga, Monsieur and 
Madame Gaillard, Vauvinet, and a crowd of other 
personages now entered. 

After a conversation with the manufacturer on the 


Unconscious Comedians. 


283 


subject of his suit, Massol, without making any prom- 
ises, told him that the report was not yet written, and 
that citizens could always rely upon the knowledge and 
the independence of the Council of State. Receiving 
that cold and dignified response, Gazonal, in despair, 
thought it necessary to set about seducing the charm- 
ing Jenny, with whom he was by this time in love. 
Leon de Lora and Bixiou left their victim in the hands 
of that most roguish and frolicsome member of the 
anomalous society, — for Jenny Cadine is the sole 
rival in that respect of the famous Dejazet. 

At the supper-table, where Gazonal was fascinated 
by a silver service made by the modern Benvenuto 
Cellini, Froment-Meurice, the contents of which were 
worthy of the container, his mischievous friends were 
careful to sit at some distance from him; but they 
followed with cautious eye the manoeuvres of the 
clever actress, who, being attracted by the insidious 
hope of getting her furniture renewed, was playing 
her cards to take the provincial home with her. No 
sheep upon the day of the Fete-Dieu ever more meekly 
allowed his little Saint John to lead him along than 
Gazonal as he followed his siren. 

Three days later, Leon and Bixiou, who had not 
seen Gazonal since that evening, went to his lodgings 
about two in the afternoon. 

“Well, cousin,” said Leon, “the Council of State 
has decided in favor of your suit.” 


284 


Unconscious Comedians, 


“Maybe, but it is useless now, cousin,” said 
Gazonal, lifting a melancholy eye to his two friends. 
“ I ’ve become a republican.” 

“ What does that mean? ” asked Leon. 

“I have n’t anything left; not even enough to pay 
my lawyer,” replied Gazonal. “ Madame Jenny 
Cadine has got notes of hand out of me to the amount 
of more money than all the property I own — ” 

“ The fact is Cadine is rather dear; but — ” 

“Oh, but I didn’t get anything for my money,” 
said Gazonal. “What a woman! Well, I’ll own 
the provinces are not a match for Paris; I shall retire 
to La Trappe.” 

“Good!” said Bixiou, “now you are reasonable. 
Come, recognize the majesty of the capital.” 

“And of capital,” added Leon, holding out to 
Gazonal his notes of hand. 

Gazonal gazed at the papers with a stupefied air. 

“ You can’t say now that we don’t understand the 
duties of hospitality; haven’t we educated you, saved 
you from poverty, feasted you, and amused you?” 
said Bixiou. 

“ And fooled you,” added Leon, making the gesture 
of gamins to express the action of picking pockets. 


ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN. 
















































































































































































































































































. 














































































ANOTHER STUDY OF WOMAN. 


TO L120N GOZLAN, 

As a Testimony to Good Literary Brotherhood. 


THE SALON OP MADEMOISELLE DES TOUCHES. 

In Parisian society you will nearly always find two 
distinct evenings in the balls and routs. First, the 
official evening, at which all the invited guests are 
present, — a gay world bored. Each person poses 
for his or her neighbor. The majority of the young 
women have come there to meet one person only. 
When each is satisfied that she is the handsomest 
woman present for that person, and that his opinion is 
probably shared by some others, she is ready to leave, 
after the exchange of a few insignificant speeches, 
such as: “Shall you go early to La Crampade?” — 
“ Madame de Portenduere sang very well, I think.” — 


288 Another Study of Woman . 

“Who is that little woman over there, covered with 
diamonds?” Or, perhaps, after casting about a few 
epigrams, which give momentary pleasure and lasting 
wounds, the groups begin to thin, mere acquaintances 
take leave, and then the mistress of the house stops 
her personal friends, and a few artists and lively 
fellows, saying, in a whisper: “Don’t go, we shall 
have supper presently.” 

Then the company gathers in a little salon. The 
second, the real evening, begins, — an evening like 
those of the old regime, when everybody understands 
what is talked about, conversation is general, and 
each person present is expected to show his or her wit 
and to contribute to the general amusement. The scene 
has changed ; frank laughter succeeds to the stiff arti- 
ficial air which dulls in society the prettiest faces. In 
short, pleasure begins as the rout ends. The rout, 
that cold review of luxury, the march-past of self- 
loves in full costume, is one of those English inven- 
tions which tend to turn all other nations into mere 
machines. England seems desirous that all the world 
should be as much and as often bored as herself. 
This second party succeeding the first is therefore 
in some French houses a lively protest of the former 
spirits of our joyous land. But, unfortunately, few 
houses thus protest; and the reason is plain: if sup- 
pers are no longer in vogue it is because at no time, 


Another Study of Woman. 289 

under any regime, were there ever so few persons in 
France with settled positions, surroundings, fortunes, 
families, and name as under the reign of Louis 
Philippe, in which the Revolution was begun again 
legally. All the world is on the march toward some 
end, or it is trotting after wealth. Time has become 
the most costly of all provisions; no one can allow 
himself the monstrous prodigality of coming home 
late and sleeping late the next morning. The second 
party is therefore only found among women rich 
enough to really entertain; and since July, 1830, such 
women may be counted on the fingers. 

In spite of the mute opposition of the faubourg 
Saint-Germain, two or three women, among them the 
Marquise d’Espard and Mademoiselle des Touches, 
refused to renounce the influence they had held up to 
that time over Paris, and did not close their salons. 

The salon of Mademoiselle des Touches, which was 
very celebrated in Paris, was the last asylum of the 
true French wit of other days, with its hidden pro- 
fundity, its thousand casuistries, and its exquisite 
politeness. There you might observe the grace of 
manner which underlay the conventions of politeness; 
the easy flow of conversation in spite of the natural 
reserve of well-bred persons; and above all, gener- 
osity and largeness of ideas. There, no one dreamed 
of reserving his thought for a drama ; no one saw a 

19 


290 Another Study of Woman. 

book to be made out of a narrative. In short, the 
hideous skeleton of literature in want did not rise and 
show itself apropos of some piquant sally or some 
interesting topic. 

During the evening of which we shall now speak, 
chance had collected in the salon of Mademoiselle des 
Touches a number of persons whose undeniable merits 
had won for them European reputations. This is not 
a flattery addressed to France, for several foreigners 
were among us. The men who chiefly shone were 
by no means the most distinguished. Ingenious 
repartees, shrewd observations, capital satires, de- 
scriptions given with brilliant clearness, sparkled and 
flowed without preparation, lavished themselves with- 
out reserve as without assumption, and were delight- 
fully felt and delicately enjoyed. The men of the 
world were particularly noticeable for a grace, a 
warmth of fancy that was wholly artistic. You will 
meet elsewhere in Europe elegant manners, cordiality, 
good-fellowship and knowledge, but in Paris only, in 
this salon and those I have just mentioned, will be 
found in perfection that particular form of mind which 
gives to these social qualities an agreeable and varied 
harmony, a fluvial motion by which this wealth of 
thoughts, of formulas, of narratives, of history itself, 
winds easily along. 

Paris, the capital of taste, alone knows the science 


Another Study of Woman . 291 

which changes conversation to a joust in which the 
quality of each mind is condensed into a flash, where 
each tilter says his word and casts his experience into 
it, where all are amused, refreshed, and have their 
faculties exercised. There alone you can exchange 
ideas ; there you do not carry, like the dolphin in the 
fable, a monkey on your back ; there you are under- 
stood, and you run no risk of staking your gold against 
false coin or copper. There, in short, talk, light and 
deep, floats, undulates, and turns, changing aspect 
and color at every sentence; there, too, secrets are 
well betrayed. Lively criticism and pithy narrative 
lead each other on. Eyes are listening as well as 
ears; gestures put questions to which faces reply. 
There, all is, in a word, thought and wit. Never had 
the oral phenomenon, which, if well studied and 
well-managed, makes the power of the orator and the 
narrator, so completely bewitched me. 

I was not the only one sensitive to these influences, 
and we passed a delightful evening. The conversa- 
tion finally turned to narrative, and led, in its rapid 
course, to curious confidences, striking portraits, and 
a multitude of fancies, which render that delight- 
ful improvisation altogether untransferable to paper. 
But, by leaving to a few things their tartness, their 
abrupt naturalness, their sophistical sinuosities, per- 
haps you will understand the charm of a true French 


292 


Another Study of Woman. 


soiree , taken at the moment when the pleasantest 
familiarity has made every one forget his or her self- 
interests, self-loves, or, if you prefer so to call them, 
pretensions. 

About two in the morning, when supper was over, 
none but a few intimates, all tried friends, tried by 
an intercourse of fifteen years, and certain men of 
the world, well-bred and gifted with taste, remained 
around the table. A tone of absolute equality reigned 
among them; and yet there was no one present who 
did not feel proud of being himself. 

Mademoiselle des Touches always obliged her guests 
to remain at table until they took their leave, having 
many times remarked the total change that takes place 
in the minds of those present by removal to another 
room. Between a dining-room and a salon, the charm 
snaps. According to Sterne, the ideas of an author 
are different after he has shaved from what they were 
before. If Sterne is right, we may boldly aver that 
the inclinations of persons still seated round a dinner- 
table are not those of the same persons when returned 
to the salon. The atmosphere is more heady, the eye 
is no longer enlivened by the brilliant disorder of the 
dessert; we have lost the benefits of that softening of 
the spirit, that kindliness and good-will which per- 
vaded our being in the pleasant condition of those 
who have well eaten, and are sitting at their ease on 


Another Study of Woman. 293 

chairs as comfortable as they make them in these 
clays. Perhaps we talk more willingly in presence of 
the dessert and in company with choice wines, during 
the delightful moments when we rest our elbow on the 
table and lean our head on our hand. Certain it is 
that people not only like to talk at such times, but they 
like to listen. Digestion, nearly always attentive, is, 
according to characters, either talkative or silent. 
Each person present then follows his bent. 

This preamble was needed to introduce you to the 
charms of a confidential narrative in which a cele- 
brated man, since dead, depicted the innocent Jesuit- 
ism of a woman with the crafty shrewdness of a man 
who has seen many things, — a quality which makes 
public men the most delightful narrators when, like 
Talleyrand and Metternich, they deign to tell a tale. 

De Marsay, who had now been prime minister for 
more than six months, had already given proofs of 
superior capacity. Though friends who had long 
known him were not surprised to see him display both 
the talents and aptitudes of a statesman, they were 
still asking themselves whether he felt within him- 
self a great political strength, or whether he had 
simply developed in the heat of circumstances. This 
question had just been put to him, with an evidently 
philosophical intention, by a man of intellect and 
observation whom he had made a prefect, — a man 


294 Another Study of Woman . 

who was long a journalist, and who admired the prime 
minister without mingling his admiration with that 
touch of sour criticism by which, in Paris, one supe- 
rior man excuses himself for admiring another. 

“ Has there been in your earlier life any fact, 
thought, or desire, which made you foresee your voca- 
tion ?” asked Emile Blondet; “for we all have, like 
Newton, our particular apple which falls, and takes 
us to the sphere in which our faculties can develop.” 

“Yes,” replied de Marsay, “and I ’ll tell you about 
it.” 

Pretty women, political dandies, artists, old men, 
de Marsay’ s intimates, settled themselves comforta- 
bly, each in his own way, and looked at the prime 
minister. Is it necessary to say that the servants had 
left the dining-room, that the doors were closed and 
the portieres drawn? The silence which now fell was 
so deep that the murmur of the coachmen’s voices and 
the stamping of the horses impatient for their stable 
came up from the courtyard. 

“ A statesman, my friends, exists through one qual- 
ity only,” said the minister, playing with his pearl- 
handled and gold dessert-knife. “To know how at 
all moments to be master of himself ; to be able, on 
all occasions, to meet the failure of events, however 
unexpected and fortuitous it may be; in short, to 
have, in his inner self, a cold, detached being, which 


Another Study of Woman . 295 

looks on as a spectator at all the movements of our 
life, our passions, our sentiments, and which inspires 
us, apropos of all things, with the decision of a species 
of ready-reckoner.” 

“You are explaining to us why statesmen are so 
rare in France,” said old Lord Dudley. 

“ From a sentimental point of view it is certainly 
horrible,” said the minister, “and therefore when 
this phenomenon appears in a young man (Richelieu, 
warned of Concini’s danger by a letter over-night, 
slept till mid-day, when he knew his benefactor would 
be killed at ten o’clock), that young man, be he 
Pitt, or Napoleon if you like, is a monstrosity. I 
became that monster very early in life, thanks to a 
woman.” 

“ I thought,” said Madame de Montcornet (Virginie 
Blondet), smiling, “that we unmade more statesmen 
than we make.” 

“ The monster of whom I speak is only a monster 
inasmuch as he resists your sex,” said the narrator, 
with an ironical bow. 

“ If this tale relates to a love-affair,” said the 
Baronne de Nucingen, “ I request that it may not be 
interrupted by reflections.” 

“Reflection being so contrary to love,” remarked 
Joseph Bridau. 

“ I was nineteen years of age,” resumed de Marsay; 


296 


Another Study of Woman. 


“the Restoration was becoming re-established; my 
oldest friends know how impetuous and fiery I then was. 
I was in love for the first time, and I may, at this late 
day, be allowed to say that I was one of the hand- 
somest young men in Paris. I had youth and beauty, 
two advantages due to chance, of which we are as 
proud as if we had won them. I say nothing about 
the rest. Like all young men, I was in love with a 
woman about six years older than myself. Only one 
of you,” he said, looking round the table, “ will guess 
her name or recognize her. Ronquerolles was the 
only one in those days who fathomed my secret, and 
he kept it carefully. I might fear his smile, but he 
seems to be gone,” said the minister, again looking 
about him. 

“He would not stay to supper,” said his sister, 
Madame de Serizy. 

“ For six months possessed by this love, but inca- 
pable of suspecting that it mastered me,” continued 
the minister, “I gave myself up to that adorable 
worship which is the triumph and the fragile happiness 
of youth. I treasured her glove, I drank infusions of 
the flowers she had worn, I rose from my bed to go 
and stand beneath her windows. All my blood rushed 
to my heart as I breathed the perfume that she pre- 
ferred. I was then a thousand leagues f rom suspect - 
ing that women are furnaces above and marble below.” 


Another Study of Woman . 297 

“ Ob, spare us those horrible sentiments,” said 
Madame de Camps, laughing. 

“ I would then have blasted with contempt the philos- 
opher who published to the world that terrible opin- 
ion, so profoundly true,” replied de Marsay. “You 
are all too wise and witty to need me to say more on 
that point; but perhaps the rest that I have to tell 
may recall to you your own follies. Well, — a great 
lady, if ever there was one, a widow without children 
(oh! she had every advantage), my idol went so far as 
to shut herself up to mark my handkerchiefs with her 
own hair ; in short, she responded to my follies with 
follies of her own. How is it possible not to believe 
in a passion when it is guaranteed by folly? We had 
put, each of us, all our wits into concealing so com- 
plete and glorious a love from the eyes of the world ; 
and we succeeded. Of her, I shall tell you nothing ; 
perfect in those days, she was considered until quite 
recently one of the handsomest women in Paris; at 
the time of which I speak men would have risked 
death to obtain her favor. She was left in a satis- 
factory condition as to fortune, for a woman who loved 
and was beloved; but the Restoration, to which she 
was indebted for higher honors, made her wealth 
insufficient to meet the requirements of her name and 
rank. As for me, I had the self-conceit that conceives 
no suspicions. Although my natural jealousy had in 


298 


Another Study of Woman. 


those days a hundred-and-twenty-Othello power, that 
terrible sentiment slumbered in my breast like gold in 
its nugget. I would have made my valet flog me had 
I felt the baseness to doubt the purity and fidelity of 
that angel, so frail, so strong, so fair, so naive, so 
pure, so candid, whose blue eyes let me penetrate 
with adorable submission to the bottom of her heart. 
Never the least hesitation in pose, or look, or word; 
always white and fresh and tender to her beloved 
as the eastern lily of the Song of Songs. Ah, my 
friends ! ” cried the minister, sorrowfully, becoming 
for the moment a young man, “We must knock our 
heads very hard against the marble to dispel that 
poesy.” 

This cry of nature, which found its echo among the 
guests, piqued their curiosity, already so cleverly 
excited. 

“ Every morning, mounted on that splendid Sul- 
tan you sent me from England,” he said to Lord 
Dudley, “ I rode past her caleche and read my orders 
for the day in her bouquet, prepared in case we were 
unable to exchange a few words. * Though we saw 
each other nearly every evening in society, and she 
wrote to me every day, we had invented, in order to 
deceive the world and baffle observation, a system of 
behavior. Not to look at each other, to avoid ever 
being together, to speak slightingly of each other’s 


Another Study of Woman. 299 

qualities, all those well-worn manoeuvres were of little 
value compared with our device of a mutual false 
devotion to an indifferent person, and an air of indif- 
ference to the true idol. If two lovers will play that 
game they can always dupe society, but they must be 
very sure of each other. Her substitute was a man 
high in court favour, cold, devout, whom she did not 
receive in her own house. Our comedy was only 
played for the profit of fools in salons. The question 
of marriage had not been mooted between us; six 
years’ difference in our ages might cause her to reflect. 
She knew nothing of the amount of my fortune, which, 
on principle, I have always concealed. As for me, 
charmed by her mind, her manners, the extent of her 
information and her knowledge of the world, I would 
fain have married her without reflection. And yet 
her reserve pleased me. Had she been the first to 
speak to me of marriage, I might have found some- 
thing vulgar in that accomplished soul. Six full and 
perfect months! a diamond of the purest water! That 
was my allowance of love in this low world. One 
morning, being attacked by one of those bone-fevers 
which begin a severe cold, I wrote her a note putting 
off the happiness of a meeting for another day. No 
sooner was the letter gone than I regretted it. 4 She 
certainly will not believe that I am ill,’ I said to 
myself ; for she was fond of seeming jealous and sus- 


300 Another Study of Woman. 

picious. When jealousy is real,” said de Marsay, 
interrupting himself, “it is the evident sign of a 
single-minded love.” 

“Why? ” asked the Princesse de Cadignan, eagerly. 

“A true and single-minded love,” said de Marsay, 
“produces a sort of bodily apathy in harmony with 
the contemplation into which the person falls. The 
mind then complicates all things; it works upon itself, 
it sets up fantasies in place of realities, which only 
torture it; but this jealousy is as fascinating as it is 
embarrassing.” 

A foreign minister smiled, recognizing by the light 
of memory the truth of this remark. 

“Besides, I said to myself, why lose a happy 
day?” continued de Marsay, resuming his narrative. 
“ Was n’t it better to go, ill as I was? for, if she thought 
me ill I believed her capable of coming to see me and 
so compromising herself. I made an effort ; I wrote a 
second letter, and as my confidential man was not on 
hand, I took it myself. The river lay between us ; I 
had all Paris to cross; when I came within suitable 
distance of her house I called a porter and told him to 
deliver the letter immediately; then the fine idea came 
into my head of driving past the house in a hackney- 
coach to see if the letter was delivered promptly. 
Just as I passed in front of it, about two o’clock in 
the afternoon, the great gate opened to admit the 


Another Study of Woman. 


301 


carriage of — whom do you suppose? The substi- 
tute! It is fifteen years since that happened; well! 
as I tell you of it, this exhausted orator, this minister 
dried to the core by contact with public business, still 
feels the boiling of something in his heart and a fire 
in his diaphragm. At the end of an hour I passed 
again, — the carriage was still in the courtyard ; my 
note had doubtless not been taken up to her. At last, 
at half-past three o’clock, the carriage drove away 
and I was able to study the face of my rival. He 
was grave, he did not smile ; but he was certainly in 
love, and no doubt some plan was in the wind. At the 
appointed hour I kept my tryst ; the queen of my soul 
was calm and serene. Here, I must tell you that I 
have always thought Othello not only stupid, but guilty 
of very bad taste. No man but one who was half a 
negro would have behaved as he did. Shakespeare 
felt that when he called his play the Moor of Venice. 
The mere sight of the beloved woman has something 
so healing to the heart, that it dissipates all vexa- 
tions, doubts, sorrows; my wrath subsided and I 
smiled again. This at my present age, would have 
been horribly dissimulating, but then it was simply 
the result of my youth and love. My jealousy thus 
buried, I had power to observe. I was visibly ill; the 
horrible doubts which had tortured me increased the 
appearance of illness, and she showed me the most 


802 Another Study of Woman. 

tender solicitude. I found occasion however to slip 
in the words: ‘ Had you any visitor this morning?* 
explaining that I had wondered how she would amuse 
herself after receiving my first note. 

“ ‘I? ’ she said, 4 how could I think of any amuse- 
ment after hearing of your illness? Until your second 
note came I was planning how to go to you.* 

44 4 Then you were quite alone? * 

4 4 4 Quite,’ she answered, looking at me with so per- 
fect an expression of innocence that it rivalled that 
which drove the Moor to kill his Desdemona. As she 
alone occupied her house, that word was a shocking 
falsehood. A single lie destroys that absolute confi- 
dence which, for certain souls, is the basis itself of 
love. To express to you what went on within me at 
that moment,* it is necessary to admit that we have an 
inner being of which the visible man is the scabbard, 
and that that being, brilliant as light itself, is deli- 
cate as a vapor. Well, that glorious inward I was 
thenceforth and forever clothed in crape. Yes, I felt 
a cold and fleshless hand placing upon me the shroud 
of experience, imposing upon my soul the eternal 
mourning which follows a first betrayal. Lowering 
my eyes not to let her see my dazed condition, a 
proud thought came into my mind which restored to 
me some strength: 4 If she deceives you she is un- 
worthy of you.* I excused the flush in my face, and 


Another Study of Woman . 303 

a few tears that came into my eyes, on the ground of 
increased illness, and the gentle creature insisted on 
taking me home in her carriage. On the way she was 
tenderness itself; her solicitude would have deceived 
the same Moor of Venice whom I take for my point of 
comparison. In fact, if that big child had hesitated 
two seconds longer he would, as any intelligent spec- 
tator divines, have asked pardon of Desdemona. 
Therefore, to kill a woman is the act of a child. She 
wept as she left me at my own door, so unhappy was 
she at not being able to nurse me herself! She 
wished she were my valet, she was jealous of his cares ! 
All this was written to me the next day as a happy 
Clarissa might have written it. There is always the 
soul of a monkey in the sweetest and most angelic of 
women ! ” 

At these words the women present lowered their 
eye3 as if wounded by a cruel truth so cruelly stated. 

“I tell you nothing of the night, nor of the week 
that I passed,” continued de Marsay; “ but it was 
then that I saw myself a statesman.” 

Those words were so finely uttered that, one and all, 
we made a gesture of admiration. 

“ While reflecting, with an infernal spirit, on all 
the forms of cruel vengeance to which we can subject 
a woman,” continued de Marsay, — “ and there were 
many and irreparable ones in this case, — I suddenly 


304 Another Study of Woman. 

despised myself ; I felt that I was commonplace, and I 
formulated, insensibly, a dreadful code, that of Indul- 
gence. To take revenge upon a woman, does not such 
an act admit that there is but one woman in the world 
for us, and that we cannot live without her? If so, is 
vengeance a means to recover her? But if she is not 
indispensable to us, if there are others for us, why 
not allow her the same right to change that we arro- 
gate to ourselves? This, you must fully-understand, 
applies only to passion; otherwise it would be anti- 
social; nothing proves the necessity of indissoluble 
marriage more than the instability of passion. The 
two sexes need to be chained together like the wild 
beasts that they are, in laws as mute and unchange- 
able as fate. Suppress revenge, and betrayal becomes 
nothing in love, its teeth are drawn. Those who 
think that there exists but one woman in the world 
for them, they may take to vengeance, and then there 
is but one form for it, — that of Othello. Mine was 
different; it was this: — ” 

The last three words produced among us that imper- 
ceptible movement which journalists describe in par- 
liamentary debates as “ profound sensation.” 

“ Cured of my cold and of pure, absolute, divinest 
love, I let myself go into an adventure with another 
heroine, who was charming, of a style of beauty ex- 
actly opposite to that of my deceiving angel. I took 


Another Study of Woman. 


305 


good care, however, not to break with that very clever 
creature and good comedian, for I don’t know whether 
a true love itself can give more graceful enjoyments 
than accomplished treachery. Such hypocrisy equals 
virtue. I don’t say this for you Englishmen,” added 
the minister, gently, addressing Lady Barimore, daugh- 
ter of Lord Dudley. “Well, I even tried to fall in 
love. It happened that I wanted for this new angel a 
little gift done with my own hair, and I went to a cer- 
tain artist in hair, much in vogue in those days, who 
lived in the rue Boucher. This man had a monopoly 
of capillary gifts, and I give his address for the bene- 
fit of those who have n’t much hair of their own ; he 
keeps locks of all kinds and all colors. After receiv- 
ing my order, he showed me his work. I then saw 
productions of patience surpassing those of fairy tales 
and even of convicts; and he put me up to all the 
caprices and fashions which reigned in the regions of 
hair. 


“ ‘For the last year,’ he said to me, ‘there has 
been a rage for marking linen with hair; happily, I 
had a fine collection on hand and excellent work- 
women.’ 

“Hearing those words, a suspicion assailed me; I 
drew out my handkerchief and said to him : — 

“ ‘Probably this was done at your place, with false 
hair? ’ 


20 


306 Another Study of Woman. 

“He looked attentively at the handkerchief and 
said: — 

“ ‘ That lady was very difficult to suit; she insisted 
on matching the very shade of her hair. My wife 
marked those handkerchiefs herself. You have there, 
monsieur, one of the finest things of the kind ever 
executed.’ 

“ Before this last flash of light I might still have 
believed in something; I could still have given some 
attention to a woman’s word. I left that shop having 
faith in pleasure, but, in the matter of love, as much 
of an atheist as a mathematician. Two months later 
I was seated beside my ethereal deceiver on a sofa in 
her boudoir. I was holding one of her hands, which 
were very beautiful, and together we were climbing 
the Alps of sentiment, gathering flowers by the way, 
plucking the leaves from the daisies (there is always 
a moment in life when we pluck out the daisy leaves, 
though it may be in a salon where daisies are not). 
At the moment of deepest tenderness, when we seem to 
love most, love is so conscious of its want of duration 
that one feels an invincible need to ask: 4 Dost thou 
love me? ’ — ‘Wilt thou love me always? ’ I seized 
that elegiac moment, so warm, so flowery, so expan- 
sive, to make her tell her finest lies, with the ravish- 
ing exaggerations of that Gascon poesy peculiar to 
love. Charlotte then displayed the choicest flowers 


Another Study of Woman . 


307 


of her deception : she could not live without me ; I was 
the only man in all the world to her; yet she feared 
to weary me, for in my presence her mind forsook 
her; near me her faculties became all love; she was 
too loving not to have many fears; of late she had 
sought a means to attach me forever to her side ; but 
God alone could do that.” 

The women who were listening to de Marsay seemed 
offended by his mimicry; for he accompanied these 
words with pantomime, poses of the head, and affecta- 
tions of manner, which conveyed the scene. 

“At the moment when I was expected to believe 
these adorable falsehoods, I said to her, still holding 
her right hand in mine : — ■ 

“ ‘When do you marry the duke?" 

“ The thrust was so direct, my glance met hers so 
straight, that the quiver of her hand lying softly in 
mine, slight as it was, could not be completely dis- 
sembled ; her eyes fell before mine, and a slight flush 
came into her cheeks. 

“ £ The duke! ’ she said, feigning the utmost aston- 
ishment. ‘ What can you mean ? 9 

“ ‘I know all, ’ I replied; ‘ in my opinion you had 
better not delay the marriage. He is rich, he is a 
duke ; but also, he is religious, — more than that, he is 
a bigot! You don’t seem aware how urgent it is that 
you should make him commit himself in his own eyes 


308 Another Study of Woman . 

and before God; if you don’t do this soon you will 
never attain your end.’ 

“ ‘Is this a dream? ’ she said, pushing up her hair 
from her forehead with Malibran’s celebrated gesture, 
fifteen years before Malibran ever made it. 

“ ‘Come, don’t play the babe unborn, my angel,’ I 
said, trying to take both her hands. But she crossed 
them in front of her with an angry and prudish little 
air. ‘ Marry him, I am willing,’ I continued. 4 In 
fact, I strongly advise it.’ 

“ ‘But,’ she said, falling at my feet, ‘ there ’s some 
horrible mistake here ; I love no man but you in this 
world; you can ask me for any proof }K>u like.’ 

“ ‘Rise, my dear,’ I said, ‘ and do me the honor 
to be frank.’ 

“ ‘ Yes, before Heaven.’ 

“ ‘ Do you doubt my love? * 

“ ‘No.’ 

“ ‘My fidelity?’ 

“ ‘No.’ 

“‘Well, then, I have committed the greatest of 
crimes,’ I went on. ‘ I have doubted your love and 
your fidelity; and I have looked at the matter 
calmly — ’ 

“ ‘Calmly! ’ she cried, sighing. ‘ Enough, Henri, 
I see that you no longer love me.’ 

“ You observe that she was quick to seize that way 


Another Study of Woman . 


309 


of escape. In such scenes an adverb is often very 
dangerous. But luckily curiosity induced her to 
add : — 

“ ‘What have you seen or heard? Have I ever 
spoken to the duke except in society ? Have you ever 
noticed in my eyes — ’ 

“ ‘ No, * I said, 4 but I have_in his. You have 
made me go eight times to Saint-Thomas d’Aquin to 
see you both hearing mass together/ 

“‘Ah!’ she cried, ‘at last I have made you 
jealous! * 

“ ‘I wish I could be/ I replied, admiring the sup - 
pleness of that quick mind, and the acrobatic feats by 
which she strove to blind me. ‘ But, by dint of going 
to church, I have become an unbeliever. The day of 
my first cold and your first deception you received the 
duke when you thought me safe in bed, and you told 
me you had seen no man/ 

“ ‘ Do you know that your conduct is infamous? * 

“ ‘How so? I think your marriage with the duke 
an excellent affair; he gives you a fine name, the only 
position that is really suitable for you, an honorable 
and brilliant future. You will be one of the queens 
of Paris. I should do you a great wrong if I placed 
any obstacles in the way of this arrangement, this 
honorable life, this superb alliance. Ah! some day, 
Charlotte, you will do me justice by discovering how 


310 Another Study of Woman. 

different my character is from that of other young 
men. You are on the point of being forced to break 
with me, and yet you would have found it very diffi- 
cult to do so. The duke is watching you; his virtue 
is very stern, and it is high time that you and I should 
part. You will have to be a prude, I warn you of 
that. The duke is a vain man, and he wants to be 
proud of his wife.’ 

“‘Ah!’ she said, bursting into tears, ‘Henri, if 
you had only spoken ! ’ (y ou see she was determined to 
put the blame on me) — ‘ yes, if you had wished it we 
could have lived all our lives together, married, happy 
before the world, or in some quiet corner of it.’ 

“ ‘Well, it is too late now,’ I said, kissing her 
hands and assuming the airs of a victim. 

“ ‘ But I can undo it all,’ she said. 

“ ‘No, you have gone too far with the duke. I 
shall even make a journey, to separate us from each 
other more completely. We should each have to fear 
the love of our own hearts.’ 

“‘Do you think, Henri, that the duke has any 
suspicions ? ’ 

“ ‘I think not,’ I replied, ‘ but he is watching you. 
Make yourself devote , attend to your religious duties, 
for the duke is seeking proofs ; he is hesitating, and 
you ought to make him come to a decision. ’ 

“She rose, took two turns about the boudoir in a 


Another Study of Woman. 


811 


state of agitation either feigned or real; then she 
found a pose and a glance which she no doubt felt 
to be in harmony with the situation ; for she stopped 
before me, held out her hand, and said in a voice of 
emotion : — 

“ ‘ Henri, you are a loyal, noble, charming man, 
and I shall never forget you.’ 

“This was excellent strategy.. She was enchanting 
in this transition, which was necessary to the situa- 
tion in which she wanted to stand towards me. I 
assumed the attitude and manners of a man so dis- 
tressed that she took me by the hand and led me, 
almost cast me, though gently, on the sofa, saying, 
after a moment’s silence: ‘I am deeply grieved, my 
friend. You love me truly? ’ 

“ 4 Oh, yes.’ 

“ ‘ Then what will become of you? ’ ” 

Here all the women present exchanged glances. 

“ I have suffered once more in thus recalling her 
treachery //but at any rate I still laugh at the air of 
conviction and soft inward satisfaction which she felt, 
if not at my death, at least at my eternal unhappi- 
n ess,”] continued de Marsay. “Oh! you needn’t 
laugh yet,” he said to the guests; “ the best is still to 
come. I looked at her very tenderly after a pause, 
and said : — 

“ ‘Yes, that is what I have asked myself.’ 


312 Another Study of Woman . 

“ ‘ What will you do? ’ 

“ ‘ 1 asked myself that question the morning after 
the cold I told you of. * 

“ ‘And? — ’ she said, with visible uneasiness. 

“ ‘I began to pay court to that little lady whom I 
had for my substitute.’ 

“ Charlotte sprang up from the sofa like a frightened 
doe; she trembled like a leaf, as she cast upon me 
one of those looks in which a woman forgets her dig- 
nity, her modesty, her craftiness, even her grace, — 
the glittering glance of a hunted viper, forced to its 
hole, — and said : — 

“ ‘ I, who loved him! I, who struggled! I, who — ’ 

“On that third idea, which I leave you to guess, 
she made the finest organ pause ears ever listened to. 

“ ‘ Good heavens!’ she cried, ‘ how wretched women 
are! We are never truly loved. There is nothing real 
to men in the purest sentiments. But, let me tell you, 
though you trick us, you are still our dupes.’ 

“ ‘ So I see,’ I said with a contrite air. ‘ You have 
too much wit in your anger for your heart to suffer 
much.’ 

“This modest sarcasm redoubled her wrath; she 
now shed tears of rage. 

“ ‘You have degraded life and the world in my 
eyes, ’ she said ; ‘ you have torn away all my illusions, 
you have depraved my heart — ’ 


Another Study of Woman, 


313 


“ In short, she said to me all that I had the right 
to say to her, with a bare-faced simplicity, a naive 
effrontery, which would certainly have got the better 
of any man but me. 

“ ‘ What will become of us, poor hapless women, in 
the social life which Louis XVIII. *s Charter has crea- 
ted for us? Yes, we were born to suffer. As for 
love, we are always above you, and you are always 
below us in loyalty. None of you have honesty in 
your hearts. For you, love is a game in which you 
think it fair to cheat.’ 

“ ‘ Dear,’ I said, ‘to take things seriously in our 
present social life would be to play at perfect love 
with an actress.’ 

“ ‘What infamous treachery! ’ she cried. * So this 
has all been reasoned out? ’ 

“ ‘ No; it is simply reasonable.’ 

‘“Farewell, Monsieur de Marsay,’ she said; ‘you 
have deceived me shamefully. ’ 

‘“Will Madame la duchesse,’ I asked in a submis- 
sive manner, ‘remember Charlotte’s wrongs? ’ 

“ ‘Assuredly,’ she said in a bitter tone. 

“ ‘ So then, you detest me? ’ 

“ She inclined her head; and I left her to a senti- 
ment which allowed her to think that she had some- 
thing to avenge. My friends, I have deeply studied 
the lives of men who have had success with women ; 


314 


Another Study of Woman. 

and I feel sure that neither the Marechal de Richelieu, 
nor Lauzun, nor Louis de Valois ever made, for the 
first time, so able a retreat. As for my own heart 
and mind, they were formed then and forever; and 
the control I gained over the unreflecting impulses 
which cause us to commit so many follies gave me the 
coolness and self-possession which you know of.” 

“ How I pity the second woman! ” said the Baronne 
de Nucingen. 

An almost imperceptible smile which flickered for a 
moment on de Marsay’s pale lips made Delphine de 
Nucingen color. 

u How people forget! ” cried the Baron de Nucingen. 

The naivete of the celebrated banker had such suc- 
cess that his wife, who had been that “ second ” of de 
Marsay, could not help laughing with the rest of the 
company. 

“You are all disposed to condemn that woman,” 
said Lady Dudley, “ but I can understand why she 
should not consider her marriage in the light of an 
inconstancy. Men never will distinguish between 
constancy and fidelity. I knew the woman whose 
history Monsieur de Marsay has just related ; she was 
one of the last of your great ladies.” 

“ Alas! you are right there,” said de Marsay. 
“For the last fifty years we have been taking part in 
the steady destruction of all social distinctions. We 


315 


Another Study of Woman . 

ought to have saved women from the great shipwreck, 
but the Civil Code has passed its level over their 
heads. However terrible the words may be, they 
must be said ; the duchess is disappearing, and so is 
the marquise. As for baronesses (I ask pardon of 
Madame de Nucingen, who will make herself a true 
.countess when her husband becomes peer of France), 
the baronesses have never been regarded seriously.” 

“Aristocracy begins with the viscountess,” re- 
marked Blondet, smiling. 

“ Countesses will remain,” said de Marsay. “An 
elegant woman will always be more or less a countess, 
— countess of the Empire, or of yesterday, countess 
of the vieille roche , or, as they say in Italy, countess of 
civility. But as for the great lady, she is dead, — dead 
with the grandiose surroundings of the last century; 
dead with her powder, mouches, and high-heeled slip- 
pers, and her busked corset adorned with its delta of 
flowing ribbons. Duchesses in the present day can 
pass through ordinary doors that are not widened to 
admit a hoop. The Empire saw the last of the trained 
gowns. Napoleon little imagined the effects of the 
Code of which he was so proud. That man, by creat- 
ing his duchesses, generated the race of comme il faut 
women whom we see to-day, — the resulting product 
of his legislation.” 

“Thought, used as a hammer by the lad leaving 


316 Another Study of Woman. 

school and the nameless journalist, has demolished 
the splendors of the social state,” said the Comte de 
Yandenesse. “ To-day, any absurd fellow who can 
hold his head above a collar, cover his manly breast 
with half a yard of satin in the form of a waistcoat, 
present a brow shining with apocryphal genius under 
his frizzed hair, and blunder along in varnished pumps 
and silk socks costing half a dozen francs, now wears 
a glass in the arch of one eye by squeezing his cheek 
against it and, — whether he ’s a lawyer’s clerk, the 
son of a contractor, or a banker’s bastard, — ogles 
impertinently the prettiest duchess, rates her charms 
as she comes down the staircase of a theatre, and says 
to his friend (clothed by Buisson, like the rest of us), 
‘There, my dear fellow, is a comme il faut woman.’” 

“You have never made yourselves,” said Lord 
Dudley, “ into a party ; it will be long now before 
you have any place politically. A great deal has 
been said in France about organizing labor, but 
property has never yet organized. Here is what is 
happening to you: A duke, no matter who (there were 
still a few under Louis XVIII. and Charles X. who 
possessed two hundred thousand francs a year, a splen- 
did mansion, and a retinue of servants), — that duke 
could still behave like a great seigneur. The last of 
these great French lords is the Prince de Talleyrand. 
This duke dies, and, let us suppose, leaves four chil- 


Another Study of Woman. 317 

dren, two of whom are daughters. Each of these 
heirs, supposing that he has managed to marry them 
well, will inherit, at most, sixty to eighty thousand 
francs a year; each is father or mother of several 
childrep, consequently obliged to live on one floor, 
probably the ground-floor, of a house, with the strictest 
economy, — it may be that they are even obliged to 
borrow money. The wife of the eldest son, who is a 
duchess in name only, has neither carriage, nor ser- 
vants, nor opera-box, nor time of her own; she hasn’t 
even her own suite of rooms in a family mansion, nor 
her own fortune, nor her personal baubles. She is 
buried in marriage as a wife of the rue Saint Denis is 
buried in commerce; she buys the socks of her dear 
little babes, feeds and teaches her daughters, whom 
she no longer puts to school in a convent. Your 
women of rank simply sit upon their nests.” 

“Alas, yes!” said Joseph Bridau. “ Our epoch 
no longer possesses those exquisite feminine flowers 
which adorned the great centuries of the French mon- 
archy. The fan of the great lady is broken. Woman 
no longer blushes, whispers sly malice, hides her face 
behind her fan only to show it, — the fan serves merely 
to fan her! When a thing is no longer anything but 
what it is, it is too useful to belong to luxury.”. 

“Everything in France has assisted in producing 
the comme il faut woman,” said Daniel d’Arthez. 


818 


Another Study of Woman. 


“ The aristocracy has consented to this state of things 
by retreating to its estates to hide and die, — emigrat- 
ing to the interior before ideas as formerly it emi- 
grated to foreign parts before the populace. Women 
who could have founded European salons, controlled 
opinion and turned it like a glove, who should have 
ruled the world by guiding the men of art and thought 
who outwardly ruled it, have committed the fatal 
blunder of abandoning their ground, ashamed to have 
to struggle with a bourgeoisie intoxicated by power 
and making its debut on the world’s stage only, per- 
haps, to be hacked in pieces by the .barbarians who 
are at its heels. Where the bourgeois affects to see 
princesses, there are none but so-called fashionable 
women. Princes no longer find great ladies to distin- 
guish ; they cannot even render famous a woman taken 
from the ranks. The Due de Bourbon was the last 
prince to use that privilege.” 

“And Heaven knows what it cost him! ” said Lord 
Dudley. 

“The press follows suit,” remarked Rastignac. 
“ Women no longer have the charm of spoken feuille- 
tons , delightful satires uttered in choicest language. 
In like manner we now-a-days read feuilletons written 
in a patois which changes every three years, and 
“little journals,” as lively as undertakers, and as 
light as the lead of their own type. French conversa- 


Another Study of Woman . 


319 


tion is now carried on in revolutionary Iroquois from 
end to end of France, where the long printed columns 
of the newspapers take the place in ancient mansions 
of those brilliant coteries of men and women who con- 
versed there in former days.” 

“ The knell of Great Society has sounded, do you 
know it?” said a Russian prince; “and the first 
stroke of its iron tongue is your modern French term: 
femme comme il faut.” 

“You are right, prince,” said de Marsay. “That 
woman, issuing from the ranks of the nobility, or 
growing from the bourgeoisie, coming from any and 
every region, even the provinces, is the expression of 
the spirit of our day, — a last image of good taste, wit, 
intellect, grace, and distinction united, but all diminish- 
ing. We shall see no more grandes dames in France, 
but for a long time still to come there will be comme 
il faut women, sent by public opinion to the Upper 
Feminine Chamber, — women who will be to the fair 
sex what the ‘ gentleman ’ is among his fellows in 
England.” 

“And they call that progress! ” said Mademoiselle 
des Touches. “I would like to know what progress 
is.” 

“ This,” said Madame de Nucingen: “ Formerly a 
woman might have the voice of a fish-wife, the walk 
of a grenadier, the forehead of the boldest hussy, a 


320 Another Study of Woman. 

fat foot, a thick hand, but nevertheless that woman 
was a ‘ great lady ’ ; but now, be she a Montmorency, 
— if the Demoiselles de Montmorency could ever have 
such attributes, — she would not be a woman comme 
il faut. ” 

“ What is meant by a woman comme il faut?” 
asked Comte Adam Laginski, naively. 

“ She ’s a modern creation, a deplorable triumph of 
the elective system applied to the fair sex,” said de 
Marsay. “ Every revolution has its term, or saying, 
in which it is summed up and described. Our social 
revolution has ended in the comme il faut woman.” 

“ You are right,” said the Russian prince, who had 
come to Paris to make himself a literary reputation. 
“To explain certain terms or sayings added century 
by century to your noble language, would be to write 
a glorious history. Organize , for instance, is the 
word of the Empire; it contains Napoleon — the whole 
of him.” 

“But all that is not telling us what you mean by 
the woman comme il faut cried the young Pole, with 
some impatience. 

“I’ll explain her to you,” said limile Blondet. 
“ On a fine morning you are lounging about Paris. It 
is more than two o’clock, but not yet five. You see a 
woman coming towards you; the first glance you cast 
upon her is like the preface to a fine book ; it makes 


Another Study of Woman. 321 

you anticipate a world of refined and elegant things. 
Like the botanist crossing hill and vale as he her- 
borizes, among all varieties of Parisian commonness 
you have found a rare flower. Either this woman is 
accompanied by two very distinguished-looking men, 
one of whom is decorated, or by a footman in undress 
livery who follows her at a little distance. She wears 
neither startling colors, nor open-worked stockings, 
nor over-ornamental buckles, nor drawers with em- 
broidered frills visible at her ancles. You notice 
that her shoes are either prunella, with strings crossed 
on the instep over thread stockings of extreme fine- 
ness, or gray silk stockings that are perfectly plain; 
or else she wears dainty little boots of exquisite sim- 
plicity. Some pretty and not expensive stuff makes 
you notice her gown, the shape of which surprises the 
bourgeoises; it is almost always a pelisse, fastened 
by knots of ribbon and delicately edged with a silken 
cord or an almost imperceptible binding. The lady 
has an art of her own in putting on a shawl or a man- 
tle ; she knows how to wrap it from her waist to her 
throat, forming a sort of carapace which would make 
a bourgeoise look like a tortoise, but under which the 
comme ilfaut woman contrives to indicate a beautiful 
figure while concealing it. How? by what means? 
That is a secret which she keeps, without the protec- 
tion of any patent. She walks with a certain concen- 
21 


322 


Another Study of Woman . 


trie and harmonious motion, which makes her sweet 
alluring figure quiver under the stuffs as an adder at 
mid-day makes the green turf above him move. Does 
she owe to angel or devil that graceful undulation 
which plays beneath the black silk mantle, sways the 
lace of its border, and sheds a balmy air which I shall 
venture to call the breeze-Parisian. You remark upon 
her arms, about her waist, around her neck, a science of 
folds draping even a restive stuff, which reminds you 
of the antique Mnemosyne. Ah ! how well she under- 
stands — forgive me the expression — the methods of 
gait. Examine well the way in which she advances 
her foot, moulding an outline beneath her gown with 
a decent precision which excites the admiration, 
restrained by respect, of those who pass her. If an 
Englishwoman tried that walk she would look like a 
grenadier marching to the assault of a redoubt. To 
the woman of Paris belongs the genius of gait. The 
municipality has long owed her our coming asphalt 
pavements. You will observe that this lady jostles 
no one. In order to pass, she stands still, waiting 
with proud modesty until way is made for her. Her 
attitude, both tranquil and disdainful, obliges the 
most insolent dandy to step aside. Her bonnet, of 
remarkable simplicity, has fresh strings. Possibly, 
there may be flowers upon it; but the cleverest of 
these women wear only ribbons. Feathers require a 


Another Study of Woman . 323 

carriage, flowers attract the eye. Beneath the bonnet 
yon see the cool and restful face of a woman who is 
sure of herself, but without self-conceit; who looks 
at nothing, but sees all; and whose vanity, lulled by 
continual gratification, gives to her countenance an 
expression of indifference which piques curiosity. 
She knows she is being studied; she is well aware 
that nearly every one, even women, turn round to look 
at her. She passes through Paris like a film of gos- 
samer, as white and as pearly. This beautiful species 
of the sex prefers the warmest latitudes and the clean- 
est longitudes in Paris; you will therefore find her 
between the 10th and the 110th arcade of the rue de 
Rivoli, along the line of the boulevards, from the 
equator of the Panorama, where the productions of the 
Indies flourish and the finest creations of industry are 
blooming, to the cape of the Madeleine; you will find 
her also in the least muddy regions of the bourgeoisie, 
between number 30 and number 150 of the rue du 
Faubourg-Saint-Honore. During the winter she takes 
her pleasure on the terrace of the Feuillants, and not 
upon the bituminous pavements which skirt it. Ac- 
cording to weather, she glides through the alleys of 
the Champs Elysees. Never will you meet this charm- 
ing variety of womankind in the hyperboreal regions 
of the rue Saint-Denis, never in the Kamtschatka of 
muddy streets small and commercial, and never any- 


324 Another Study of Woman. 

where in rainy weather. These flowers of Paris, open- 
ing to the sun, perfume the promenades and fold their 
leaves by five in the afternoon like a convolvulus. 
The women whom you will see later having slightly 
the same air and trying to imitate them are another 
race. This fair unknown, the Beatrice of our day, 
is the comme ilfaut woman. 

“ It is not always easy, my dear count,” said Blondet, 
interrupting himself for a moment, “ for foreigners to 
perceive the differences by which a connoisseur emeri- 
tus distinguishes the two species, for women are born 
comedians. But those differences strike the eye of 
all Parisians : hooks are visible, tapes show their yel- 
lowish white through a gap at the back of the gown; 
shoes are worn at heel, bonnet strings have been 
ironed, the gown puffs out too much, the bustle is flat- 
tened. You notice a sort of effort in the premeditated 
lowering of the eyelids. The attitude is conventional. 
As for the bourgeoise, it is impossible to confound 
her with the woman who is comme il faut ; she makes 
an admirable foil to her, she explains the charm the 
unknown lady has cast upon you. The bourgeoise is 
busy ; she is out in all weathers ; comes and goes and 
trots; is undecided whether she will, or whether she 
will not enter a shop. Where the comme il faut woman 
knows perfectly well what she wants and what she 
means to do, the bourgeoise is undecided, pulls up 


Another Study of Woman. 325 

her gown to cross a gutter, drags a child after her, and 
is forced to watch for carriages; she is a mother in 
public and lectures her daughter; carries money in a 
handbag and wears open-work stockings, a boa above 
a fur cape in winter, and a shawl with a scarf in sum- 
mer, — the bourgeoise is an adept at the pleonasms 
of the toilet. As for your Beatrice, you will find her 
in the evening at the Opera, or in a ballroom. She 
then appears under an aspect so different that you 
fancy her two creations without analogy. The woman 
has issued from her morning vestments like a butter- 
fly from its larva. She serves, as a dainty to your 
raptured eyes, the form which her shawl scarce out- 
lined in the morning. At the theatre the woman of 
society never goes higher than the second tier of 
boxes, unless at the Italian opera. You can therefore 
study at your ease the judicious slowness of her move- 
ments. This adorable manceuvrer uses all the little 
artifices of woman’s policy with a natural ease that 
precludes the idea of art and premeditation. Is her 
hand royally beautiful, the most suspicious man would 
believe it absolutely necessary to roll, or fasten up, 
or toss aside whichever ringlet or curl she may touch. 
Has she nobility of profile, you will think she is 
merely giving irony or charm to what she says to her 
neighbor, by turning her head in a manner to produce 
that magic effect, so dear to great painters, which 


326 Another Study of Woman. 

draws the light to the cheek, defines the nose with a 
clear outline, illumines the pink of the nostril, carves 
the forehead with sharp prominence, and leaves a 
touch of high light on the chin. If she has a pretty 
foot she throws herself on a sofa with the coquetry of 
a cat in the sunshine, her feet forward, without your 
seeing anything more in that pretty pose than a 
charming model for lassitude offered to a sculptor. 
No other woman but the woman comme il faut is ever 
perfectly at her ease in her clothes; nothing disturbs 
her. You will never see her putting in place, like a 
bourgeoise, a recalcitrant shoulder-knot, or looking to 
see if the lace of her chemisette accomplishes its office 
of unfaithful guardian to the sparkling whiteness of 
her bosom ; never will you find her looking in a mirror 
to discover if her coiffure is perfectly intact. Her 
toilet is always in harmony with her character; she 
has had time to study herself and to decide what suits 
her; she has long known what does not suit her. You 
never see her when the audience of a theatre disperses ; 
she departs before the end of the play. If by # chance 
she is seen, calm and sedate, upon the steps of the 
staircase, some powerful sentiment has prompted her. 
She is there to order; she has some look to give, some 
promise to receive. Perhaps she is descending slowly 
to gratify the vanity of a slave whom she occasion- 
ally obeys. If you meet her in society, at a ball or a 


Another Study of Woman. 327 

soiree , you will gather the honey, real or affected, of 
her practised voice; you will be enchanted with her 
empty talk, to which she contrives to impart the sem- 
blance of thought with inimitable skill — ” 

■ ‘ Then it is n’t necessary for the comme il faut 
woman to have intellect?” said the young Polish 
count. 

“It is impossible to be that kind of woman without 
taste,” said the Princesse de Cadignan. 

“ And to have taste is, in France, to have more 
than mind,” said the Russian prince. 

“ The mind of this woman is the triumph of an art 
that is wholly plastic,” replied Blondet. “ You don’t 
know what she says, but you are charmed. She has 
nodded her head or sweetly shrugged her handsome 
shoulders, or gilded some meaningless phrase with a 
smile or a charming poiit, or put Voltaire’s epigram 
into an ‘Oh! ’ an ‘Ah! ’ an ‘Is it possible?’ The 
turn of her head is an active interrogation ; she gives 
meaning of some kind to the movement with which 
she dances a vinaigrette fastened by a chain to her 
finger. These are artificial great effects obtained 
by superlatively small ones: she lets her hand fall 
nobly from the arm of her chair, and all is said ; she 
has rendered judgment without appeal fit to move the 
most insensible. She has listened to you, she has 
given you an opportunity to show your wit; and — I 


328 Another Study of Woman . 

appeal to your modesty — such moments in society are 
rare.” 

The innocent air of the young Pole whom Blondet 
was addressing made every one laugh heartily. 

“ You can’t talk half an hour with a bourgeoise 
before she brings to light her husband under one form 
or another,” continued Blondet, whose gravity did not 
give way ; “ but if your comme ilfaut woman is married 
she has the tact to conceal her husband, and the labor 
of Christopher Columbus would hardly enable you to 
discover him. If you have not been able to question 
others on this point, you will see her toward the end of 
the evening fix her eyes steadily on a man of middle 
age, who inclines his head and leaves the room ; she 
has told her husband to call up the carriage, and she 
departs. In her own house no comme il faut woman 
is ever visible before four o’clock, the hour at which 
she receives. She is wise enough to make you wait 
even then. You will find good taste throughout her 
house; her luxury is intended for use, and is renewed 
when needful ; you will see nothing there under glass 
cases, nor any swathings of protective gauze. The 
staircase is warm; flowers gladden you everywhere; 
flowers are the only presents she accepts, and those 
from a few persons only ; bouquets give pleasure and 
live for a single day and are then renewed. To her 
they are, as in the East, a symbol and a promise. 


Another Study of Woman. 329 

The costly trifles of fashion are spread about, but her 
salons are not turned into a museum or an old curi- 
osity shop. You will find her seated on a sofa at the 
corner of the fireplace, whence she will bow to you 
without rising. Her conversation is no longer that 
of the ballroom; in her own house she is bound to 
entertain you. The comme il faut woman possesses 
all these shades of behaviour in perfection. She wel- 
comes in you a man who will swell the circle of her 
society, the great object of the cares and anxieties of 
all women of the world. Consequently, to attach you 
to her salon she will make herself charmingly coquet- 
tish. You will feel above all, in that salon, how 
isolated women are in the present day and why they 
endeavor to have a little society about them in which 
they can shine as constellations. But this is the 
death of conversation; conversation is impossible 
without generalities. ” 

“ Yes,” said de Marsay, “ you have seized upon the 
great defect of our epoch. Epigram, that book in a 
word, no longer falls, as in the eighteenth century, on 
persons and on things, but on petty events and dies 
with the day.” 

“ The wit of the comme il faut woman, when she 
has any,” resumed Blondet, “consists in putting a 
doubt on everything, while the bourgeoise uses hers 
to affirm everything. There lies a great difference 


830 


Another Study of Woman. 


between the two women. The bourgeoise is certain 
of her virtue; the comme il faut woman is not sure if 
she has any yet, or if she has always had it. This 
hesitation about all things is one of the last graces 
our horrible epoch has granted her. She seldom goes 
to church* but she will talk religion to you and try to. 
convert you, if you have the good sense to play the 
free thinker, for that will open the way to the stereo- 
typed phrases, the motions of the head and the ges- 
tures which belong to such women: ‘Ah, fy ! I thought 
you had more intelligence than to attack religion. 
Society is crumbling already and you remove its 
prop. But religion at this moment is you and I, it is 
property, it is the future of our children! Ah! let us 
not be egotists. Individualism is the disease of our 
epoch, and religion is the sole remedy; it unites the 
families that your laws disunite,’ etc., etc. She begins 
in this way a neo-Christian sermon sprinkled with 
political ideas, which is neither Catholic nor Protest- 
ant, but moral (oh! devilishly moral), in which you 
will find scraps of every stuff that modern doctrines 
driven to bay have woven.” 

The women present could not help laughing at the 
mincing affectations of their sex with which Emile 
Blondet illustrated his sarcasms. 

“Those remarks, my dear Comte Adam,” said 
Blondet, looking at the young Pole, “ will show you 


Another Study of Woman. 331 

that the comme il faut woman represents intellectual 
hotch-potch as well as political jumble; just as she 
lives surrounded by the brilliant but not lasting pro- 
ducts of modern industry, which aims at the destruc- 
tion of its work in order to replace it. You will leave 
her house saying to yourself, ‘ She has, decidedly, 
very superior ideas ; ’ and you think so all the more 
because she has sounded your heart and mind with a 
delicate hand; she has sought your secrets, — for the 
comme il faut woman feigns ignorance of everything, 
in order to discover everything; but she is discreet; 
there are things she never knows, however well she 
may know them. Nevertheless you will feel uneasy, 
you are ignorant of the real state of her heart. For- 
merly the great ladies loved openly, banners dis- 
played ; now the woman comme il faut has her little 
passion ruled like a sheet of music paper with its 
crotchets and quavers, its minims, rests, and sharps 
and flats. Always weak, she will neither sacrifice her 
love, her husband, nor the future of her children. 
She ’s a woman of jesuitical middle-paths, of squint- 
eyed temporizing with conventions, of unavowed pas- 
sions carried along between two breakwaters. She 
fears her servants like an Englishwoman who sees 
before her the perspective of a divorce suit. This 
woman, so apparently at her ease in a ballroom, so 
charming on the street, is a slave at home. She has 


332 Another Study of Woman. 

no independence, unless locked in with her own ideas. 
She is determined to remain outwardly the woman 
comme il faut . That ’s her theory of life. A woman 
separated from her husband, reduced to a pittance, 
without carriage or luxury or opera-box, is to-day 
neither wife, maid, nor bourgeoise; she dissolves, 
she becomes a thing. What is to become of her? 
The Carmelites won’t take married women; will her 
lover always want her? that’s a question. There- 
fore the comme il faut woman may sometimes give 
rise to calumny, but never to condemnation.” 

“ That is all true, horribly true,” said the Princesse 
de Cadignan. 

“Consequently, the comme il faut woman,” con- 
tinued Blondet, “ lives between English hypocrisy 
and the frankness of the eighteenth century, — a bas- 
tard system emblematic of a period when nothing 
that comes is like that which goes, when transitions 
lead nowhere, when the great figures of the past are 
blotted out, and distinctions are purely personal. In 
my opinion it is impossible for a woman, even though 
she be born on the steps of a throne, to acquire before 
the age of twenty-five, the encyclopedic science of 
nothings, the art of manoeuvring, the various great 
little things, — music of the voice, harmonies of 
color, angelic deviltries and innocent profligacy, the 
language and the silence, the gravity and the folly, 


Another Study of Woman. 333 

the wit and the dulness, the diplomacy and the igno- 
rance which constitute the woman comme il faut.” 

“Accepting the description you have just given of 
her,” said Mademoiselle des Touches to Emile Blondet, 
“where do you class the woman-author? Is she a 
woman comme il faut ? ” 

“ When she is not gifted with genius, she is a woman 
comme il n' en faut pas,” replied Simile Blondet, ac- 
companying his answer with a glance which might 
pass for a frank compliment to Camille Maupin. 
“But that is not my saying; it belongs to Napoleon, 
who hated women of genius,” he added. 

“Don’t be too hard on -Napoleon,” said Canalis, 
with an emphatic tone and gesture. “It was one of 
his littlenesses — for he had them — to be jealous of 
literary fame. Who can explain, or describe, or 
comprehend Napoleon? — a man represented always 
with folded arms, who yet did all things; who was 
the greatest known Power, the most concentrated 
power, the most corrosive and acid of all powers; a 
strong genius which led an armed civilization through- 
out the world and fixed it nowhere ; a man who could 
do all because he willed all ; prodigious phenomenon 
of Will! — subduing disease by a battle, yet doomed 
to die of disease in his bed after living unscathed 
amid cannon-balls and bullets; a man who had in 
his head a Code and a Sword, word and action; a 


334 Another Study of Woman. 

clear-sighted mind which divined all except his own 
fall; a capricious politician who played his soldiers 
like pawns and yet respected three heads, Talleyrand, 
Pozzo di Borgo, and Metternich, diplomatists whose 
death would have saved the French Empire, but whose 
life seemed to him of more value than that of thou- 
sands of soldiers; a man to whom, by some rare 
privilege nature had left a heart in his iron body ; a 
man at midnight kind and laughing among women, 
and the next day handling Europe without gloves; 
hypocritical and generous; loving meretriciousness 
and simplicity ; without taste, but protecting Art ; and, 
in spite of these antitheses, grand in all things by in- 
stinct or by organization; Caesar at twenty-five years 
of age, Cromwell at thirty, but a good husband and 
a good father like any bourgeois of Pere Lachaise ; a 
man who improvised great public buildings, empires, 
kings, codes, poems, and one romance, and all with 
greater range than accuracy. Did he not attempt to 
make Europe France; and after bearing our weight 
upon the earth until it changed the laws of gravitation, 
has he not left us poorer than the day he put his hand 
upon us? He who made an empire with his name, 
lost that name on the borders of his empire in a sea 
of blood and slaughtered men. A man all thought 
and action, who was able to comprehend both Desaix 
and Fouche.” 


Another Study of Woman. 


33 & 


“ Despotic power and legal justice, each in due sea- 
son, makes the true king,” said de Marsay. 

“ But,” said the Princesse de Cadignan, addressing 
the other women with a smile both dubious and satiri- 
cal, “ have we women really deteriorated as these 
gentlemen seem to think? Because to-day, under a 
system which belittles everything, you men like little 
dishes, little apartments, little paintings, little jour- 
nals, little books, is that any reason why women 
should be less grand than they have been ? Does the 
human heart change because you change your habits ? 
At all epochs passions remain the same. I know 
splendid devotions, sublime endurances which lack 
publicity, — fame if you prefer to call it so. Many 
a woman is not less an Agnes Sorel because she never 
saved a king of France. Do you think our Marquise 
d’Espard worth less than Madame Doublet or Madame 
du Deffand, in whose salon so much harm was said 
and done? Isn’t Taglioni the equal of Camargo? 
and Malibran of Saint-Huberti? Are not our poets 
superior to those of the eighteenth century? If, at 
this moment, thanks to the grocers who govern us, we 
have no style of our own, did n’t the Empire have a 
style as fully its own as that of Louis XV. ? And its 
splendor was surely fabulous. Have the arts and 
sciences lost ground?” 

“ I agree with you, madame,” said General de 


836 


Another. Study of Woman. 


Montriveau. “In my opinion the women of this 
epoch are truly great. When posterity gives a verdict 
upon us will not Madame Recamier’s fame be equal to 
that of the loveliest women of past ages? We have 
made history so fast that we lack historians to write it 
down. The reign of Louis XIV. had but one Madame 
de Sevigne, while we have a thousand to-day in Paris 
who can write better letters, but do not publish them. 
Whether the French woman calls herself femme comme 
it faut or great lady, she will always be the pre- 
eminent woman. Emile Blondet has made us a pic- 
ture of the manners and charms of a woman of the 
present day; but, if occasion offered, this mincing, 
affected being, who plays a part and warbles out the 
ideas of Monsieur this, that, and the other, would 
show herself heroic! Even your faults, mesdames, 
seem the more poetic because they are and always 
will be hedged about with great dangers. I have seen 
much of the world, perhaps I have studied it too late; 
but, under circumstances in which the illegality of 
your sentiments might find excuse, I have always 
observed the effects of some chance, — you may call it 
Providence if you like, — which fatally overtake those 
women whom we call frail.” 

“ I hope,” said Madame de Camps, “ that we are 
able to be great otherwise.” 

“ Oh, let the Marquis de Montriveau preach to us! ” 
cried Madame de Serizy. 


Another Study of Woman . 337 

“ All the more because he has preached by example, ” 
said the Baronne de Nucingen. 

“Alas!” said General de Montriveau, “of the 
many dramas, — that ’s a word you are constantly 
using,” he said with a nod to Blondet, “ in which to 
my knowledge the finger of God has showed itself, 
the most terrible was one that was partly my own 
doing.” 

“ Oh, tell it to us! ” cried Lady Barimore. “ I love 
to shudder.” 

“ The taste of a virtuous woman,” said de Marsay 
replying to the charming daughter of Lord Dudley. 

“During the campaign of 1812,” said General de 
Montriveau, “ I was the involuntary cause of a fearful 
misfortune, which may serve you, Docteur Bianchon,” 
he said, turning to me, — “ you, who take so much note 
of the human mind while you study the human body, — 
to solve certain of your enigmas concerning the will. 
I was making my second campaign; I liked the peril 
and I laughed at everything, simple young lieutenant 
of artillery that I was ! When we reached the Beresina 
the army no longer kept, as you know, any discipline; 
military obedience was at an end. A crowd of men 
of all nations was making its way instinctively from 
north to south. Soldiers drove their barefooted and 
ragged general from their camp-fires if he brought 

them neither wood nor provisions. After the passage 

22 


338 Another Study of Woman. 

of that famous river, the disorder was lessened. I 
came out quietly, alone, without food, from the 
marshes of Zembin, and I walked along looking for a 
house where some one might be willing to admit me. 
Finding none all day, being driven from those I came 
to, I fortunately saw late in the evening a miserable 
little Polish farmhouse, of which I can give you no 
idea unless you have seen the wooden houses of lower 
Normandy or the poorest hovels of La Beauce. These 
Polish dwellings consist of a single room, one end of 
which is divided off by a plank partition and serves as 
a storehouse for forage. 1 saw in the twilight a light 
smoke rising from this building, and hoping to find 
comrades more compassionate than the persons I had 
hitherto addressed, I marched boldly to the door. 
Entering, I found a table spread. Several officers, 
among whom was a woman (a not unusual sight), 
were eating potatoes and horse-flesh broiled on the 
embers, and frozen beetroot. I recognized two or 
three captains of artillery belonging to the regiment in 
which I had first served. I was received with a volley 
of acclamations which would greatly have surprised 
me on the other side of the Beresina; but at this 
moment the cold was less intense, my comrades were 
resting, they were warm, they were eating, and piles 
of straw at the end of the room offered them the per- 
spective of a delightful night. We did n’t ask for 


Another Study of Woman . 339 

much in those days. My comrades could be philan- 
thropic gratis, — a very common way of being philan- 
thropic, by the bye. At the end of the table, near the 
door which led into the small room filled with straw 
and hay, I saw my former colonel, one of the most 
extraordinary men I have ever met in the varied col- 
lection of men it has been my lot to know. He was 
an Italian. Whenever human beings are beautiful in 
southern countries they are sublimely beautiful. Have 
you ever remarked the singular whiteness of Italians 
when they are white? It is magnificent, especially in 
the light. When I read the fantastic portrait Charles 
Nodier has given us of Colonel Oudet, I found my 
own sensations expressed in every sentence. Italian, 
like most of the officers of his regiment, — borrowed 
by the Emperor from the army of Prince Eugene, — 
my colonel was a man of great height, admirably pro- 
portioned, possibly a trifle too stout, but amazingly 
vigorous and light, agile as a greyhound. His black 
hair, curling profusely, set into brilliant relief a clear 
white skin like that of a woman. He had handsome 
feet, small hands, a charming mouth, and an aquiline 
nose with delicate lines, the tip of which contracted 
naturally and turned white when he was angry, which 
was often. His irascibility so passed all belief that I 
shall tell you nothing about it; you shall judge for 
yourself. No one was ever at ease in his presence. 


840 


Another Study of Woman. 


Perhaps I was the only man who did not fear him. 
It is true that he had taken a singular liking to me; 
he thought whatever I did was good. When anger 
worked within him, his forehead contracted, his mus- 
cles stood out in the middle of it like the horse-shoe 
of Redgauntlet. That sign would have terrified you 
more than the magnetic lightning of his blue eyes. 
His whole body would then quiver, and his strength, 
already so great in his normal condition, passed all 
bounds. He rolled his r * s excessively. His voice, 
certainly as powerful as that of Charles Nodier’s 
Oudet, gave an indescribable richness of sound to the 
syllable which contained that consonant. Though this 
vice of pronunciation was, in him, and at all times, a 
charm, you cannot imagine the power that accent, con- 
sidered so vulgar in Paris, was capable of expressing 
when he commanded a manoeuvre, or was in any w r ay 
excited. You must have heard it to understand it. 
When the colonel was tranquil his blue eyes were full 
of angelic sweetness; his pure brow sparkled with an 
expression that was full of charm. At a parade of the 
Army of Italy no man could compare with him. Even 
d’Orsay himself, the handsome d’Orsay, was van- 
quished by our colonel at the last review held by 
Napoleon before his entrance into Russia. In this 
gifted man all was contradiction. Passion lives by 
contrasts. Therefore do not ask me whether he was 


Another Study of Woman. 


341 


conscious of those irresistible influences to which 
our nature ” (the general looked toward the Princesse 
de Cadignan) “bends like molten glass beneath the 
blower’s pipe; but it so chanced that by some singular 
fatality the colonel had had but few love-affairs, or 
had neglected to have them. To give you an idea of 
his violence, I will tell you in two words what I once 
saw him do in a paroxysm of anger. We were march- 
ing with our cannon along a very narrow road, bor- 
dered on one side by woods and on the other by a 
rather steep bank. Half way along this road we met 
another "regiment of artillery, its colonel marching 
with it. This colonel wanted to make the captain of 
our regiment at the head of the first battery give way 
to his troop. Naturally our captain refused. But the 
colonel of the other regiment made a sign to his first 
battery to advance, and in spite of the care the first 
driver took to keep close into the woods the wheel of 
the gun carriage caught the right leg of our captain, 
broke it, and flung him to the other side of his horse. 
It was done in a moment. Our colonel, who happened 
to be at a little distance, saw the quarrel, and galloped 
furiously up through the trees and among the wheels 
.at the risk of being flung with all his hoofs in the air, 
reaching the spot in face of the other colonel just as 
the captain cried out, ‘To me!’ and fell. No! our 
Italian colonel was no longer a man. Foam, like that 


342 


Another Study of Woman. 


of champagne, boiled from his mouth, he growled like 
a lion. Incapable of uttering a word, even a cry, he 
made a dreadful sign to his adversary, pointing to the 
wood, and drew his sabre. They entered- it. In two 
seconds we saw the other colonel on the ground with 
his head split in two. The soldiers of that regiment 
retreated, ha ! the devil ! and in quick time, too ! Our 
captain, who just missed being killed, and who was 
yelping in the ditch where the wheel of the gun- 
carriage had flung him, had a wife, a charming Italian 
woman from Messina, who was not indifferent to our 
colonel. This circumstance had greatly increased his 
fury. His protection was due to the husband ; he was 
bound to defend him as well as the wife. Now, in 
the miserable Polish cabin this side of Zembin, where, 
as I told you, I received such cordial welcome, this 
very captain sat opposite to me, and his wife was at 
the other end of the table opposite to the colonel. 
She was a little woman, named Rosina, very dark, 
but bearing in her black eyes, shaped like almonds, 
all the ardour of the sun of Sicily. At this moment 
she was deplorably thin, her cheeks were covered 
with dust like a peach exposed to the weather on a 
high-road. Scarcely clothed and all in rags, wearied 
by marches, her hair in disorder beneath the frag- 
ment of a shawl tied across her head, there was still 
all the presence of a woman about her; her move- 


Another Study of Woman . 343 

merits were pretty, her rosy, dimpled mouth, her white 
teeth, the lines of her face and bust, — charms which 
misery, cold, and want of care had not entirely effaced, 
— still told of love and sweetness to any one whose 
mind could dwell upon a woman. Rosina evidently 
possessed one of those natures which are fragile in 
appearance, but are full of nervous strength. The 
face of the husband, a Piedmontese nobleman, ex- 
pressed a sort of jeering good-humor, if it is per- 
missible to ally the two words. Brave, intelligent 
and educated, he nevertheless seemed to ignore the 
relations which had existed between his wife and the 
colonel for nearly three years. I attributed this 
indifference to the singular customs of Italy, or to 
some secret in their own home ; but there was in the 
man’s face one feature which had always inspired me 
with involuntary distrust. His underlip, thin and 
very flexible, turned down at its two extremities 
instead of turning up, which seemed to me to reveal 
an underlying cruelty in a character apparently phleg- 
matic and indolent. You can well imagine that the 
conversation was not brilliant when I entered. My 
weary comrades were eating in silence, but they nat- 
urally asked me a few questions; and we related our 
several misfortunes, mingling them with reflections 
on the campaign, the generals, their blunders, the 
Russians, and the cold. Soon after my arrival, the 


344 


Another Study of Woman. 


colonel, having finished his meagre meal, wiped his 
moustache, wished us good-night, cast his black eye 
toward the woman, and said, ‘Rosina.’ Then with- 
out awaiting any reply he went into the space parti- 
tioned off for forage. The meaning of his summons 
was evident; and the young woman made an inde- 
scribable gesture, which expressed both the annoyance 
that she felt at seeing her dependence thus exhibited 
without respect for human feelings, and her sense of 
the affront offered to her dignity as a woman and to 
her husband. And yet in the strained expression of 
her features and in the violent contraction of her eye- 
brows, there seemed to be a sort of foreboding; per- 
haps a presentiment of her fate came over her. Rosina 
continued to sit tranquilly at the table; a moment 
later the colonel’s voice was heard repeating her 
name, ‘ Rosina ! ’ The tone of this new summons 
was even more brutal than that of the first. The roll- 
ing accent of the colonel’s voice and the echo which 
the Italian language gives to vowels and final letters 
revealed in a startling manner the despotism, impa- 
tience, and will of that man. Rosina turned pale, 
but she rose, passed behind us, and joined the colonel. 
All my comrades maintained a rigid silence; but I, un- 
happily, after looking round at them, began to laugh, 
and the laugh was then repeated from mouth to mouth. 
‘You laugh? ’ said the husband. ‘Faith, comrade,’ I 


345 


Another Study of Woman . 

replied, becoming serious, ‘I did wrong, I admit it; I 
ask ten thousand pardons ; and if you are not content 
with such excuses I am ready to give you satisfac- 
tion/ ‘It is not you who have done wrong, it is I,* 
he replied coldly. Thereupon we all shook down our 
straw about, the room and were soon lost in the sleep 
of weariness. The next day each man, without awak- 
ing his neighbor, without looking for a journeying 
companion, started on his way with that utter egotism 
which made our retreat from Russia one of the most 
horrible dramas of personality, sadness, and horror 
which ever took place beneath the heavens. Yet 
after each man had gone some seven or eight hundred 
yards from our night's lodging, we came together and 
marched along like geese led in flocks by the uncon- 
scious despotism of a child. A common necessity 
was driving us along. When we reached a slight 
elevation from which we could see the house where we 
had passed the night, we heard sounds that resembled 
the roaring of lions in the desert or the bellowing of 
bulls; but no! that clamor could not be compared to 
any known sound. Mingled with that horrible and 
sinister roar came the feeble cry of a woman. We all 
turned round, seized wdth a sensation — I know not 
how to describe it — of fear; the house was no longer 
visible, only a burning pile; the building, which 
some one had barricaded, was in flames. Clouds of 


346 Another Study of Woman. 

smoke, driven by the wind, rolled towards us, bring- 
ing raucous sounds and a strong indescribable odor. 
A few steps from us marched the captain, who had 
quietly joined our caravan; we looked at him in 
silence, for none of us dared question him. But he, 
divining our curiosity, touched his breast with the 
forefinger of his right hand and pointed with the left 
to the conflagration. ‘Son’ io! * he said. We con- 
tinued our way without another word to him.” 

“ There is nothing more fearful than the revolt of 
sheep,” said de Marsay. 

“ It would be too dreadful to let us part with that 
horrible scene in our minds,” said Madame de Mont- 
cornet. “I shall dream of it.” 

“ Tell us, before we go, what punishment befel 
Monsieur de Marsay’ s first love,” said Lord Dudley, 
smiling. 

“ When Englishmen jest their foils are buttoned,” 
remarked ilmile Blondet. 

“Monsieur Bianchon can tell you that,” replied de 
Marsay, turning to me. “ He saw her die.” 

“Yes,” I said, “ and her death was one of the most 
beautiful I ever witnessed. The duke and I had 
passed the night beside the pillow of the dying woman, 
whose disease, consumption, was then in its final 
stages; no hope remained, and she had received the 
last offices of the Church the preceding evening. The 


Another Study of Woman. 


347 


duke had fallen asleep. Madame la duckesse, wak- 
ing about four in the morning, made me, in a touch- 
ing manner and with a smile, a tender little sign to 
let him sleep ; and yet she felt she was about to die ! 
She had reached a stage of extraordinary thinness, but 
her face preserved its features, and its outlines were 
truly sublime. Her pallor made her skin resemble 
porcelain behind which a light has been placed. Her 
brilliant eyes and the color in her cheeks shone out 
upon this skin so softly beautiful, while the whole 
countenance seemed to breathe forth a commanding 
tranquillity. Evidently she pitied the duke, and the 
feeling took its rise in a lofty sentiment which seemed 
to see no limit in the approach of death. The silence 
was profound. The chamber, softly lighted by a 
lamp, had the appearance of all sick-chambers at the 
moment of death. At that instant the clock struck. 
The duke awoke, and was in despair at having slept. 
I did not see the gesture of impatience with which he 
showed the regret he felt at having lost his wife from 
sight during the few last moments granted to him; 
but it is certain that any other person than the dying 
woman might have been mistaken about him. A 
statesman, preoccupied with the interests of France, 
the duke had many of those apparent oddities which 
often make men of genius pass for fools, though the 
explanation may be found in the exquisite nature and 


348 Another Study of Woman. 

requirements of their mind. He now took a chair 
beside the bed and looked fixedly at his wife. The 
dying woman put out her hand and took that of her 
husband which she pressed gently, saying in a soft 
but trembling voice : — 

“‘My poor friend, who will understand you in 
future? ’ 

“ So saying, she died, looking at him.” 

“The doctor’s stories,” said the Due de Rhetore, 
“always leave a deep impression.” 

“ But a tender one,” said Mademoiselle des Touches. 


COMEDIES PLAYED GRATIS. 



COMEDIES PLAYED GRATIS. 


To Madame la Princesse de Belgiojoso, nee 
Triyulce. 


To know how to sell, to be able to sell, and to sell ! 
The public has no conception of all that Paris owes of 
grandeur to those three faces of one problem. The 
dazzling brilliancy of shops, as rich as the salons 
of the nobility before 1789, the splendor of cafes, 
which often eclipses, and very easily, that of the 
neo- Versailles; the poems of show-windows, pulled to 
pieces every night, reconstructed every morning ; the 
elegance and grace of the young men communicating 
with the female buyers; the piquant faces and toilets 
of the young girls whose business it is to attract the 
male customer; lastly, and recently, the vast spaces 
and depths and Babylonian luxury of the galleries, 
in which the shop-keepers monopolize specialties by 
collecting them in one vast enterprise, — all these 


352 


Comedies Played Grratis. 


things are nothing. They have merely pleased the 
most greedy and the most blase organ developed in 
the human being since the days of the Romans, — an 
organ whose exactions have now become boundless, 
thanks to the efforts of refined civilization. That 
organ is the Eye of a Parisian. 

That eye receives and consumes fire-works costing ' 
a hundred thousand francs ; palaces six thousand feet 
long and sixty feet high in many-colored glass; the 
fairy scenes of fourteen theatres every night; ever- 
changing panoramas ; continual exhibitions of master- 
pieces; worlds of sorrows, universes of joy, as they 
wander along the boulevards or tread the streets; 
encyclopedias of rags at the carnival; twenty illus- 
trated works a year ; a thousand caricatures ; ten thou- 
sand vignettes, lithographs, and engravings. That 
eye drinks in over fifteen thousand francs’ worth of 
gas every evening. Moreover, to satisfy it, the city 
of Paris spends annually several millions in landscape 
gardening, points of view, and plantations. But all 
this is nothing; it is only the material side of the 
question. Yes, it is in our opinion a very small 
matter compared with the efforts of intellect, the 
wiles, worthy of Moliere’s pen, practised by the sixty 
thousand clerks and the forty thousand young women 
who beset the purses of customers as whitebait swarm 
about the scraps of food which float upon the waters 
of the Seine. 


Comedies Played Gratis. 


353 


The Gaudissart of the shop is fully equal in capac- 
ity, mental powers, wit, humor, and philosophy to the 
illustrious commercial traveller who has now become 
the type of his tribe. Out of the shop, out of his line 
of business, he is like a balloon without gas ; he owes 
his faculties to his environment of goods to sell, just 
as the actor is sublime only on the stage. Although, 
judged by the other shopmen of Europe, the French 
clerk has far more education than they, — that is, he can 
talk asphalt, Mabille, polka, literature, illustrated 
books, railroads, politics, Chamber, and revolution, — 
he is excessively dull-minded when he leaves his 
counter, his yard-stick, and his selling graces. But 
there, on his own ground, persuasion on his lip, his eye 
on his customer, and shawl in hand, he eclipses the 
great Talleyrand; he has more wit than Desaugiers, 
more cunning than Cleopatra ; he is worth more than 
Monrose with Moljere to boot. In his own house 
Talleyrand would have tricked Gaudissart; but in the 
shop Gaudissart would fool the prince. 

Let us explain this paradox by a fact. 

Two pretty duchesses# were chattering in the room 
where the above-mentioned illustrious statesman was 
reading. They wanted a bracelet and they were 
expecting some to be sent for selection from the shop 
of the most celebrated jeweller in Paris. A Gaudis- 
sart arrived, armed with three bracelets, three mar- 
23 


354 


Comedies Played Gratis . 


vels, among which the two women hesitated. Choice ! 
that ’s the lightning of the intellect. Do you hesitate, 
unable to choose? Then you are certain to be mis- 
taken. Taste never has two inspirations. At last, 
after about ten minutes’ discussion, they appealed 
to the prince. He saw the two duchesses helplessly 
undecided between the two finest of these ornaments, 
— for the third had been put aside almost from the 
beginning. The prince did not close his book, neither 
did he look at the bracelets, he watched the clerk. 

“Which would you choose for the girl you like 
best? ” he said addressing him. 

The young man pointed to one of the two bracelets. 

“ In that case, take the other,” said the craftiest of 
modern diplomatists to the duchesses, “ and make 
two women happy; and you, young man, make your 
friend happy by presenting to her the other in my 
name.” 

The pretty women smiled and the shopman retired 
gratified by the present of the prince ; but still more 
by the good opinion he seemed to have of him. 

A woman is seen getting out of a brilliant equipage 
which has stopped in the rue Vivienne before the door 
of one of those sumptuous establishments where they 
sell shawls. She is accompanied by another woman. 
Women almost always start in couples on these expe- 
ditions. All, on such occasions, will go through ten 


Comedies Played Grratis. 


355 


shops before they make up their minds, and as they 
go from one to another, they laugh over the little 
comedy the clerks have played to them. But let us 
examine who played their part best, buyers or seller; 
which of the two has carried off the honors of the 
little vaudeville? 

When it is a matter of describing the greatest fact 
of Parisian commerce, namely, the Sale, it is neces- 
sary to produce a type in summing up the question. 
Now, as to this, a shawl or a chatelaine worth several 
thousand francs would certainly seem to cause more 
emotion than a piece of cambric or a gown for two or 
three hundred francs. But, O foreigners of both hemi- 
spheres, should you ever read this physiology of the 
counter, know that such scenes are played in all shops 
over a barege at two francs, or a printed muslin at four 
francs a yard. 

How can you, princesses or bourgeoises, it matters 
not which, distrust that pretty and very young man 
with velvet cheeks colored like a peach, ingenuous 
eyes, and clothed very nearly as well as your — your 
. — cousin, let us say; a youth gifted with a voice as 
soft as the fleecy fabric he displays to you? There 
are three or four others like him. Here ’s one with 
black eyes and a decided expression of face, who says 
to you w'ith an imperious air, “ This is what you want.” 
There *s another with blue eyes and timid man- 


356 


Comedies Played Gratis. 


ner and submissive phrases, and you say of him, 
“Poor lad! he was never born to be a shopman.” A 
third has chestnut hair, and yellow, laughing eyes ; he 
is pleasant of speech, and is gifted with wondrous 
activity and meridional gayety. A fourth is tawny red, 
with his beard cut fan-shape, stiff as a communist, 
stern, imposing, with a fatal cravat and curt speech. 

These different species of shopmen, selected and 
adapted as they are to the leading characteristics of 
women, are the arms of their master, — a stout indi- 
vidual with a cheery face, rather bald, possessing the 
stomach of a ministerial deputy, and sometimes deco- 
rated with the Legion of honor for having maintained 
the dignity of French trade. His lines are those of 
contented rotundity; he has a wife, several children, 
a country-house, and a balance in the bank. This 
personage descends into the arena like a Pens ex 
machind when some too mixed intrigue requires 
prompt conclusion. Thus the female purchaser is 
environed by kindliness, courtesy, youth, smiles, 
pleasantry, — all that civilized man can offer of what 
is simplest and most deceiving, the whole arranged in 
careful gradation to suit all tastes. 

One word on the optical, architectural, and decora- 
tive effects of this comedy, — a ‘short, decisive word; 
a word of history written on the spot. No. 76 rue de 
Richelieu is an elegant shop, white and gold, draped 


Comedies Played Gratis. 


357 


with crimson velvet, which now possesses an entresol, 
through which the light comes full from the rue de 
Menars as in a painter’s studio, pure, clear, and 
always equable. Where is the true Parisian lounger 
who has not admired the Persian, King of Asia, who 
bears himself so proudly at the angle of that shop in 
the rue de Richelieu and the rue de la Bourse, charged 
to say, urbi et orbi : “I reign more tranquilly here 
than at Teheran.” Five hundred years hence that 
piece of carving at the corner of two streets might, 
were it not for the present immortal analysis, occupy 
the minds of archaeologists and give rise to volumes 
in-quarto with diagrams (like those of Monsieur 
Quatremere de Quincy on the Olympian Jupiter) in 
which it would be demonstrated that Napoleon was a 
Sofi of ancient Persia before he was Emperor of the 
French. Well, the book in which you read this instruc- 
tive page was kept and sold in that entresol ; but the 
gorgeous shop laid siege to the poor little place, 
and, by force of banknotes, seized upon it. The 
Comedy of Human Life was forced to yield to the 
comedy of cashmere shawls. The Persian sacrificed a 
few diamonds in his crown to increase the much needed 
light, the rays of which have increased the sales in 
that shop one hundred per cent, on account of their 
influence on the play of colors ; this light puts into relief 
all shawl seductions; it is an irresistible light, truly a 


358 


Comedies Played Grratis. 


golden ray! From that fact judge of the efforts after 
scenic effect in the shops of Paris. 

Let us return to those young shopmen and their 
portly master (who is received by the King of the 
French at his table), and to the head-clerk with the 
ruddy beard and the autocratic manner. These 
Gaudissarts emeriti measure swords with several 
thousand caprices a week; they know all the vibra- 
tions of the cashmere-chord in the feminine heart. 
When a lorette , a respectable lady, the youngf mother 
of a family, a lionne , a duchesse, a worthy bourgeoise, 
a saucy danseuse , an innocent young girl, a too 
innocent foreigner presents herself, she is instantly 
analyzed by these seven or eight men, who have 
studied her from the moment she laid her hand on the 
knob of the door, — men whom you will see stationed 
at the windows, behind the counters, at the corners of 
the shop, looking as if they dreamed of a Sunday’s 
outing ; in fact, if you examine them, you will say to 
yourself, “ What can they be thinking of ? ” 

A woman’s purse, her desires, her intentions, her 
fancies are better searched in that one moment by 
those apparently vacant minds than custom-house 
officers can search a suspected carriage on the frontier 
in seven quarters of an hour. These intelligent 
scamps, serious as a noble father, have seen all, — the 
details of the buyer’s apparel, a spot of mud on her 


359 


Comedies Played Gratis. 

boot, want of style in her motions, dirty or ill-chosen 
bonnet-strings, the freshness of the gloves, the cut 
and fashion of the gown betraying the intelligent 
scissors of Vietorine IV., the bauble of Froment- 
Meurice, in short, all that reveals to a knowing eye 
the quality, fortune, and character of a woman. 
Tremble! Never is this sanhedrim of Gaudissarts, 
led by its master, mistaken. The ideas of each are 
transmitted from one to another with telegraphic 
rapidity, by the eye, by twitches of the body, by 
smiles, by motions of the lips; observe them, and 
you ’ll be reminded of the lighting up of the grand 
avenue of the Champs ^lysees, where the gas flies 
from lamp to lamp precisely as these ideas light up 
the pupils of clerk after clerk. 

If the entering customer be an English woman, the 
gloomy Gaudissart, mysterious and darksome, like a 
personage out of Lord Byron, advances. If it is a 
bourgeoise, the oldest of the clerks is assigned to her. 
He shows her a hundred shawls in a quarter of an 
hour; he bewilders her with colors and designs; he 
unfolds more shawls than a hawk makes circles over a 
chicken ; so, at the end of half an hour, dizzy, and not 
knowing how to choose, the worthy woman, flattered 
and pleased, trusts to the shopman, who at once places 
her between two hammers, — that of her dilemma, 
and that of the equal seductions of two shawls. 


860 


Comedies Played Gratis. 


“This, madame,” he says, “ is very becoming; it 
is apple-green, the color now in fashion, but fashions 
change; whereas this” (the black or white, the sale of 
which is urgent) “goes well with all styles; you will 
never find this out of fashion.” 

That is the mere A-B-C of the trade. 

“You would hardly believe how much eloquence is 
required in this devil of a business,” said, not long 
ago, the head Gfaudissart of the establishment we have 
already mentioned, to his two friends, du Ronceret 
and Bixiou, who had gone to the shop to buy a shawl, 
the choice of which they left to him. “You are both 
discreet, and I don’t mind speaking to you of the 
tricks played off by our patron, who is certainly the 
cleverest man at the business I ’ve ever seen. I don’t 
mean as manufacturer, for Monsieur Fritot is first 
there, but as seller. He invented the Selim shawl, 
that is, a shawl impossible to sell, which we sell con- 
tinually. We keep in a cedar box, very plain, but 
lined with satin, a shawl worth five or six hundred 
francs, a shawl sent by the Sultan Selim to the 
Emperor Napoleon. This shawl is our Imperial 
guard; it is brought on the field when the cause is 
nearly lost; il se vend et ne meurt pas.” 

At this instant an Englishwoman got out of a hired 
carriage and entered the shop, presenting a fine ideal 
of that phlegmatic coldness which characterizes Eng- 


Comedies Played Gratis. 


861 


land and all her so-called living products. You might 
have thought her the statue of the Commander advanc- 
ing with slow hops of an ungainliness manufactured 
in the families of England with national care. 

“An Englishwoman,” whispered the head-clerk in 
Bixiou’s ear, “ is our battle of Waterloo. We have 
women who slip through our fingers like eels, but we 
catch them again at the door; we have lorettes who 
blague us ; "with them we laugh, for we hold them by 
credit; we have undecipherable foreign women, to 
whom we carry shawls at their lodgings, and with whom 
we come to an understanding through flattery ; but the 
Englishwoman ! it is like handling the bronze of Louis 
XIV.’s statue. Those women regard it as an occupa- 
tion, a duty, a pleasure to bargain. They put us 
through all our paces, I can tell you.” 

The Byronic shopman had advanced. 

“ Does madame desire an India shawl, or one of 
French manufacture ; high-priced, or — ” 

“ I will see.” 

“ What sum does madame devote to the purchase? ” 

“ I will see.” 

Turning round to take the shawls and show them, 
the clerk cast a significant glance (“ What a bore ! ”) 
at his colleagues, accompanied by an almost impercep- 
tible shrug of the shoulders. 

“ These are our finest qualities in India shawls, — 


862 


Comedies Played Gratis. 


red, blue, and the yellow-orange tint; they are all ten 
thousand francs. Here are some at five thousand, and 
we have others at three thousand.” 

The Englishwoman, with an expression of stolid 
indifference, turned her eye-glass on all around her 
before she looked at the shawls, and gave no sign of 
approval or disapproval. 

“ Have you others? ” she asked. 

“ Yes, madame. But perhaps madame has not quite 
decided that she wants a shawl ? ” 

“ Haw! yes, quite decided.” 

The shopman then fetched three shawls of inferior 
value, but he spread them forth solemnly, as things of 
which to say, “Attention to these magnificences.” 

“ Here are some that are more expensive,” he said. 
“ They have not yet been offered for sale; they came 
by couriers and were bought direct from the merchants 
of Lahore.” 

“ I see,” she said. “ They suit me much best.” 

The clerk remained perfectly grave in spite of his 
inward irritation, which now began to attack du 
Ronceret and Bixiou. The Englishwoman, cold as a 
water-cress, seemed to enjoy her own phlegm. 

“What price?” she said, pointing to a sky-blue 
shawl covered with birds sitting on pagodas. 

“ Seven thousand francs.” 

She took the shawl and wrapped it round her, looked 


Comedies Played Gratis . 


363 


at herself in the glass and said, as she gave it back, 
“ No, I don’t like it.” 

A long quarter of an hour passed in equally fruitless 
essayals. 

“We have nothing more, madame,” said the shop- 
man, looking at his master. 

“ Madame is difficult to suit, like all persons of 
taste,” said the head of the establishment, coming 
forward with that shop-keeping grace which agreeably 
mingles wheedling with assumption. 

The Englishwoman took up her eyeglass and looked 
the merchant over from head to foot, unable, of 
course, to comprehend that the man was eligible to 
the Chamber and dined at the Tuileries. 

“ I have but one oth^’ shawl, and that I seldom 
show,” he continued; “ no one has ever liked it; it is 
very odd ; only this morning I was thinking of 
giving it to my wife. We have had it since 1805; 
it came from the Empress Josephine.” 

“ Show it to me.” 

“ Go and fetch it,” said the master to a clerk; “it 
is in my house.” 

“ I shall be glad to see it,” said the Englishwoman. 

This answer was to a certain extent a triumph, for 
the peevish dame was evidently about to leave the 
shop. She now made believe to look only at the 
shawls, whereas she was really looking slyly at the 


364 


Comedies Played Gratis . 


shopmen and the two gentlemen, sheltering her eyes by 
the frame of her glasses. 

“It cost originally twenty thousand francs in Tur- 
key, madame.” 

“Haw!” 

“It was one of seven shawls sent by the Sultan 
Selim before his catastrophe to the Emperor Napoleon. 
The Empress Josephine — a creole, as my lady knows, 
and therefore capricious — changed it for another of 
those brought by the Turkish ambassador, which my 
predecessor had in the meantime purchased. I have 
never been able to recover the value of it, for in France 
our ladies are not rich enough; it is not as it is in 
England. The price of this shawl is seven thousand 
francs, but its value is more than double if you take 
into account the compound interest — ” 

“ Compounded of what? ” said the Englishwoman. 

“Here it is, madame.” 

And the shopkeeper, with precautions which the 
exhibitors of the Grune-gewodbe of Dresden would 
have admired, opened with a tiny key a square box of 
cedar wood, the shape and simplicity of which ap- 
peared to impress the Englishwoman. From this box, 
which was lined w T ith black satin, he lifted a shawl, 
worth perhaps fifteen hundred francs, of a golden yel- 
low with black designs, the startling colors being 
surpassed only by the fantastic Oriental figures. 


Comedies Played Gratis . 


365 


“ Splendid ! ” said the Englishwoman. “It is really 
fine. That is my ideal of a shawl; it is very 
magnificent — ” 

The rest of her remarks were lost in a Madonna- 
like attitude taken to show off her cold eyes, which she 
evidently thought handsome. 

“ The Emperor liked that shawl very much; he used 
it himself — ” 

“ Himself! ” she repeated. 

She took the shawl, draped it about her, and exam- 
ined herself. The proprietor then took the shawl, 
carried it to the light, handled it, shook it, made it 
glisten; in short, he played upon it as Liszt plays on 
the piano. 

“It is very fine, beautiful, sweet! ” said the Eng- 
lishwoman, with a cool and tranquil air. 

Du Ronceret, Bixiou, and the clerks exchanged 
looks of satisfaction which signified, “ The shawl is 
sold.” 

“Well, madame?” said the shopkeeper interroga- 
tively, seeing the Englishwoman absorbed in a sort of 
contemplation which was far too prolonged. 

“ Decidedly,” she said at last, “ I prefer a car- 
riage.” 

One and the same start passed through the silent, 
listening clerks, as if some electric fluid had touched 
them. 


366 


Comedies Played Gratis. 


“ I have a very fine one, madame,” replied the mas- 
ter of the shop, tranquilly. “I received it from a 
Russian princess — the Princess Narzikoff — who left 
it to me in payment of her bill. If madame would 
like to see it she would, I am sure, be delighted with 
it. It has been used only a few times; there’s not 
another like it in Paris.” 

The stupefaction of the clerks was equalled only by 
their profound admiration. 

“ I will see it,” she replied. 

“ If madame will wear the shawl,” said the shop- 
keeper, “she will see the effect in the carriage.” 

He went to get his hat and gloves. 

“ How will it end?” exclaimed the head-clerk as 
he watched his patron handing the Englishwoman into 
her hired carriage. 

The matter now took on to du Ronceret and Bixiou 
the attraction of the end of a novel, besides the 
especial interest attaching to all struggles, even petty 
ones, between France and England. 

Twenty minutes later the master of the establish- 
ment returned. 

“Go to the Hotel Lawson,” he said to a clerk; 
“ here ’s the card: Mrs. Noswell. Take the bill I will 
give you; you have six thousand francs to receive.” 

“ But how did you do it? ” said du Ronceret, bowing 
to the king of shopkeepers. 


Comedies Played Gratis. 867 

“ Eh! monsieur, I saw I had to do with an eccentric 
woman ; she likes to be remarked upon ; when she saw 
that everybody we passed looked at that shawl, she 
said to me: ‘ You can keep your carriage, monsieur; I 
decide to take the shawl.’ While Monsieur Bigor- 
neau,” he went on, pointing to the Byronic clerk, 
“was showing her the shawls, I examined my lady; 
she was looking askance at you to see what idea you 
had of her; her mind was much more on you than on 
the shawls. These Englishwomen have a peculiar 
distaste — for I can’t call it taste. They don’t know 
what they want, and some chance circumstance will 
decide them to take a thiqg they have been haggling 
over, rather than their own will. I recognized her as 
one of those women bored with their husbands and 
babies, regretfully virtuous, seeking emotions, and 
always posing as weeping willows.” 

That is literally what the head of that establishment 
said. 

It proves that while in other lands a shopkeeper may 
be nothing but a shopkeeper, in France, and above 
all in Paris, he may be a college-bred man, educated, 
loving either the arts, or sport, or the theatre, or 
consumed with a desire to become the successor of 
Monsieur Cunin-Gridaine, or colonel of the National 
guard, or member of the Council of the Seine, or judge 
of the Court of Commerce. 


368 


Comedies Played Gratis, 


“Monsieur Adolphe,” said the wife of the shop- 
keeper to the little blond clerk, “ step round to the 
cabinet-maker’s and order another cedar-box.” 

“And now,” said the head-clerk, escorting du 
Ronceret and Bixiou to the door after they had selected 
a shawl for Madame Schontz, “ we must hunt among 
our old shawls for another that can play the part of 
the Selim shawl.” 


THE END. 


BALZAC IN ENGLISH . 


— » — 

Fame and Sorrow, 

&nti 0tijcr Stories. 

TRANSLATED BY KATHARINE PRESCOTT WORMELEY. 

i2mo. Half Russia. Uniform with our edition of Balzac’s 
Works. Price, $1.50. In addition to this remarkable story, 
the volume contains the following, namely : “ Colonel Chabert,” 
Si The Atheist’s Mass,” “ La Grande Breteche,” “ The Purse,” and 
u La Grenadiere.” 

The force and passion of the stories of Balzac are unapproachable. He had 
the art of putting into half a dozen pages all the fire and stress which many 
writers, who are still great, cannot compass in a volume. The present volume is 
an admirable collection, and presents well his power of handling the short story. 
That the translation is excellent need hardly be said — Boston Courier. 

The six stories ; admirably translated by Miss Wormeley, afford good examples 
of Balzac’s work in what not a few critics have thought his chief specialty. It is 
certain that no writer of many novels wrote so many short stories as he ; and it is 
equally as certain that his short stories are, almost without an exception, models 
of what such compositions ought to be. . . . No modern author, however, of any 
school whatever, has succeeded in producing short stories half so good as Balzac’s 
best. Balzac did not, indeed, attempt to display his subtility and deftness by 
writing short stories about nothing. Every one of his tales contains an episode, 
not necessarily, but usually, a dramatic episode The first in the present collec- 
tion, better known as “La Maison du Chat-qui-pelote,” is really a short novel. 
It has all the machinery, all the interest, all the detail of a regular story. The 
difference is that it is compressed as Balzac only could compress ; that here and 
there important events, changes, etc., are indicated in a few powerful lines instead 
of being elaborated; that the vital points are thrown into strong relief. Take the 
pathetic story of “Colonel Chabert” It begins with an elaboration of detail. 
The description of the lawyer’s office might seem to some too minute. But it is 
the stage upon which the Colonel is to appear, and when he enters we see the 
value of the preliminaries, for a picture is presented which the memory seizes and 
holds. As the action progresses, detail is used more parsimoniously, because the 
mise-en-scene has already been completed, and because, also, the characters once 
clearly described, the development of character and the working of passion can 
be indicated with a few pregnant strokes. Notwithstanding this increasing 
economy of space, the action takes on a swifter intensity, and the culmination of 
the tragedy leaves the reader breathless. 

In “ The Atheist’s Mass” we have quite a new kind of story This is rather 
a psychological study than a narrative of action. Two widely distinguished char- 
acters are thrown on the canvas here, — that of the great surgeon and that of the 
humble patron ; and one knows not which most to admire, the vigor of the 
drawing, or the subtle and lucid psychical analysis. In both there is rare beauty of 
soul, and perhaps, after all, the poor Auvergnat surpasses the eminent surgeon, 
though this is a delicate and difficult question. But how complete the little story 
is; how much it tells ; with what skill, and in how delightful a manner! Then 
there is that tremendous haunting legend of “ La Grande Breteche,” a story which 
has always been turned into more languages and twisted into more new forms than 
almost any other of its kind extant. What author has equalled the continuing 
horror of that unfaithful wife’s agony, compelled to look on and assist at the slow 
murder of her entrapped lover? . . Then the death of the husband and wife, — 
the one by quick and fiercer dissipation, the other by simple refusal to live longer, 
— and the abandonment of the accursed dwelling to solitude and decay, complete 
a picture, which for vividness, emotional force, imaginative power, and compre- 
hensiveness of effects, can be said to have few equals in its own class of fiction. — 
Kansas City Journal. 


by 


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BALZAC IN ENGLISH. 


• 

An Historical Mystery. 

Translated by KATHARINE PRESCOTT WORMELEY. 

12mo. Half Russia. Uniform with Balzac’s Works. Price, $1.50. 


An Historical Mystery is the title given to “ Une Tenebreuse Affaire,” which 
has just appeared in the series of translations of Honor^ de Balzac’s novels, by 
Katharine Prescott Wormeley This exciting romance is full of stirring interest, 
and is distinguished by that minute analysis of character in which its eminent 
author excelled. The characters stand boldly out from the surrounding incidents, 
and with a fidelity as wonderful as it is truthful. Plot and counterplot follow 
each other with marvellous rapidity; and around the exciting days when Na- 
poleon was First Consul, and afterward when he was Emperor, a mystery is 
woven in which some royalists are concerned that is concealed with masterly 
ingenuity until the novelist sees fit to take his reader into his confidence. The 
heroine, Laurence, is a remarkably strong character; and the love-story in which 
she figures is refreshing in its departure from the beaten path of the ordinary 
writer of fiction. Michu, her devoted servant, has also a marked individuality, 
which leaves a lasting impression. Napoleon, Talleyrand, Fouche, and other 
historical personages, appear in the tale in a manner that is at once natural and 
impressive. As an addition to a remarkable series, the book is one that no 
admirer of Balzac can afford to neglect. Miss Wormeley’s translation reproduces 
the peculiarities of the author’s style with the faithfulness for w-hich she has 
hitherto been celebrated. — Saturday Evening Gazette. 

It makes very interesting reading at this distance of time, however; and Balzac 
has given to the legendary account much of the solidity of history by his adroit 
manipulation. For the main story it must be said that the action is swifter and 
more varied than in many of the author’s books, and that there are not wanting 
many of those cameo-like portraits necessary to warn the reader against slovenly 
perusal of this carefully written story; for the complications are such, and the re- 
lations between the several plots involved so intricate, that the thread might 
easily be lost and much of the interest be thus destroyed The usual Balzac 
compactness is of course present throughout, to give body and significance to the 
work, and the stage is crowded with impressive figures. It would be impossible 
to find a book which gives a better or more faithful illustration of one of the 
strangest periods in French history, in short ; and its attraction as a story is at 
least equalled by its value as a true picture of the time it is concerned with. The 
translation is as spirited and close as Miss Wormeley has taught us to expect in 
this admirable series. — New York Trifotne. 

One of the most intensely interesting novels that Balzac ever wrote is An 
Historical Mystery , w'hose translation has just been added to the preceding 
novels that compose the “Comedie Humaine” so admirably translated by Miss 
Katharine Prescott Wormeley. The story opens in the autumn of 1803, in the 
time of the Empire, and the motive is in deep-laid political plots, which are re- 
vealed wnth the subtle and ingenious skill that marks the art of Balzac. . . . The 
story is a deep-laid political conspiracy of the secret service of the ministry of 
the police. Talleyrand, M’lle de Cinq-Cvgne, the Princess de Cadigan, Louis 
XVIII., as well as Napoleon, figure as characters of this thrilling historic ro- 
mance. An absorbing love-story is also told, in which State intrigue plays an 
important part. The character-drawing is faithful to history, an^l the story illu- 
minates French life in the early years of the century as if a calcium light were 
thrown on the scene. 

It is a romance of remarkable power and one of the most deeply fascinating 
of all the novels of the ‘'Comedie Humaine.” 


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Balzac in English 


Albert Savarus, with Paz (La Fausse’ 
Maitresse) and Madame Firmiani. By 

Honore de Balzac. Translated by Katharine Prescott 
Wormeley. 

There is much in this, one of the most remarkable of his books, 
which is synonymous with Balzac’s own life. It is the story of a man’s 
£rst love for woman, his inspirer, the source from whom he derives 
his power of action. It also contains many details on his habits of 
life and work. 

_ The three short stories in this volume, — ‘Albert Savarus,* ‘Paz’ and ‘Madame 
Firmiani ’ — are chips from that astounding workshop which never ceased its Hephoes-* 
tian labors and products until Balzac was no more. Short stories of this character 
flew from his glowing forge like sparks from an anvil, the playthings of an idle hour, 
the interludes of a more vivid drama. Three of them gathered here illustrate as 
usual Parisian and provincial life, two in a very noble fashion, Balzacian to the core. 
The third — ‘Albert Savarus* — has many elements of tragedy and grandeur in it, 
spoiled only by an abruptness in the conclusion and an accumulation of unnecessary 
horrors that chill the reader. It is a block of tragic marble hewn, not to a finish, but 

to a fine prophetic suggestion of what is to follow if ! The if never emerges 

from conditionality to fulfilment. The beautiful lines and sinuous curves of the 
nascent statue are there, not fully born of the encasing stone ; what sculptors call the 
‘tenons’ show in all their visibility — the supports and scaffoldings reveal their 
presence ; the forefront is finished as in a Greek metope or Olympian tympanum, 
where broken Lapiths and Centaurs disport themselves ; but the background is rude 
and primitive- 

In * Madame Firmiani’ a few brilliant pages suffice to a perfect picture, — one of 
the few spotless pictures of this superb yet sinning magician so rich in pictures. It is 
French nature that Balzac depicts, warm with all the physical impulses, undisguised 
in its assaults on the soul, ingeniously sensual, odiously loose in its views of marriage 
and the marriage relation, but splendidly picturesque. In this brief romance noble 
words are wedded to noble music. In ‘Paz’ an almost equal nobility of thought — • 
the nobility of self-renunciation — is attained. Balzac endows his men and women 
with happy millions and unhappy natures: the red ruby — the broken heart — blazes 
in a setting of gold. ‘ Paz,’ the sublime Pole who loves the wife of his best friend, 
a Slav Croesus, is no exception to the rule. The richest rhetoric, the sunniest colors, 
fail to counteract the Acherontian gloom of these lives and sorrows snatched from the 
cauldron of urban and rural France, — a cauldron that burns hotter than any other 
with its strange Roman and Celtic ardors. Balzac was perpetually dipping into it and 
drawing from it the wonderful and extraordinary incidents of his novels, incidents often 
monstrous in their untruth if looked at from any other than a French point of view. 
Thus, the devilish ingenuity of the jealous woman in ‘ Albert Savarus’ would seem 
unnatural anywhere else than in the sombre French provinces of 1836, — a toadstool 
sprung up in the rank moonlight of the religious conventual system of education for 
women ; but there, and then, and as one result of this system of repression, it 
seems perfectly natural. And so does the beautiful self-abnegation of Albert himself, 
that high-strung soul that could have been born only in nervous and passionate 
France. 

As usual. Miss Wormeley’s charming translation floats the reader over these 
pages in the swiftest and airiest manner. — The Critic. 

One handsome iemo volume, uniform with “ Pere Goriot,” “ The 
Duchesse de Langeais,” “ Cesar Birotteau,” “ Eugenie Grandet,” 

“ Cousin Pons,” “ The Country Doctor,” “ The Two Brothers,” and 
“The Alkahest.” Half morocco, French style. Price, $1.50. 


ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, Boston. 


Messrs . Roberts Brothers' Publications , 


A MEMOIR OF KONORE DE BALZAC. 


Compiled and written by Katharine Prescott Wormeley, translator 
of Balzac’s works. With portrait of Balzac, taken one hour after 
death, by Eugene Giraud, and a Sketch of the Prison of the College 
de Vendome. One volume, i2mo. Half Russia, uniform with our 
edition of Balzac’s works. Price, #1.50. 

A complete life of Balzac can probably never be written. The sole object of 
the present volume is to present Balzac to American readers. This memoir is 
meant to be a presentation of the man, — and not of his work, except as it was a 
part of himself, — derived from authentic sources of information, and presented in 
their own words, with such simple elucidations as a close intercourse with Balzac’s 
mind, necessitated by conscientious translation, naturally gives. The portrait 
in this volume was considered by Madame de Balzac the best likeness of her 
husband. 

Miss Wormeley’s discussion of the subject is of value in many ways, and it ha* 
long been needed as a help to comprehension of his life and character. Person- 
ally, he lived up to his theory. His life was in fact austere. Any detailed ac- 
count of the conditions under which he worked, such as are given in this volume, 
will show that this must have been the case ; and the fact strongly reinforces the 
doctrine. Miss Wormeley, in arranging her account of his career, has, almost 
of necessity, made free use of the letters and memoir published by Balzac’s sister, 
Madame Surville. She has also, whenever it would serve the purpose of illus- 
tration better, quoted from the sketches of him by his contemporaries, wisely 
rejecting the trivialities and frivolities by the exaggeration of which many of his 
first chroniclers seemed bent upon giving the great author a kind of opera-bouffe 
aspect. To judge from some of these accounts, he was flighty, irresponsible, 
possibly a little mad, prone to lose touch of actualities by the dominance of his 
imagination, fond of wild and impracticable schemes, and altogether an eccentric 
and unstable person. But it is not difficult to prove that Balzac was quite a 
different character ; that he possessed a marvellous power of intellectual organi- 
zation ; that he was the most methodical and indefatigable of workers ; that he 
was a man of a most delicate sense of honor; that his life w r as not simply de- 
voted to literary ambition, but was a martyrdom to obligations which were his 
misfortune, but not his fault. 

All this Miss Wormley has well set forth ; and in doing so she has certainly 
relieved Balzac of much unmerited odium, and has enabled those who have not 
made a study of his character and work to understand how high the place is in 
any estimate of the helpers of modern progress and enlightenment to which his 
genius and the loftiness of his aims entitle him. This memoir is a very modest 
biography, though a very good one. The author has effaced herself as much as 
possible, and has relied upon “ documents ” whenever they were trustworthy. — 
N. Y. Tributte. 


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Balzac 171 English. 


PIERRETTE 

AND 

The Vicar or Tours. 

BY HONORS DE BALZAC. 

Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley. 


In Pierrette , which Miss Wormeley has added to her series of felicitous 
translations from the French master-fictionists, Balzac has made within 
brief compass a marvellously sympathetic study of the martyrdom of a 
young girl. Pierrette, a flower of Brittany, beautiful, pale, and fair and 
sweet, is taken as an undesired charge by sordid-minded cousins in Bro- 
vins, and like an exotic transplanted into a harsh and sour soil she withers 
and fades under the cruel conditions of her new environment. Inciden- 
tally Balzac depicts in vivid colors the struggles of two shop-keepers — a 
brother and sister, who have amassed a little fortune in Paris — to gain a 
foothold among the bourgeoisie of their native town. These two become 
the prey of conspirators for political advancement, and the rivalries thus 
engendered shake the small provincial society to its centre. But the 
charm of the tale is in the portrayal of the character of Pierretle, who 
understands only how to love, and who cannot live in an atmosphere of 
suspicion and ill-treatment. The story is of course sad, but its fidelity to 
life and the pathos of it are elements of unfailing interest. Balzac brings 
a score or more of people upon the stage, shows each one as he or she 
really is both in outward appearance and inward nature, and then allows 
motives and circumstances to work out an inevitable result. To watch 
this process is like being present at some wonderful chemical experiment 
where the ingredients are mixed with a deft and careful hand, and combine 
to produce effects of astonishing significance. The social genesis of the 
old maid in her most abhorrent form occupies much of Balzac’s attention 
in Pierrette , and this theme also has a place in the story of The Vicar of 
Tours , bound up in this same volume. The vicar is a simple-minded 
priest who is happy enough till he takes up his quarters with an old maid 
landlady, who pesters and annoys him in many ways, and finally sends him 
forth despoiled of his worldly goods and a laughing-stock for the country- 
side. There is a great deal of humor in the tale, but one must confess 
that the humor is of a rather heavy sort, it being weighed down by a domi- 
nant satirical purpose. — The Beacon. 

One handsome i2mo volume, uniform with “ Pere Goriot,” 
« The Duchesse de Langeais,” “ Cesar Birotteau “ Eugenie 
Grandet,” “ Cousin Pons,” “ The Country Doctor,” “ The Two 
Brothers,” and “The Alkahest.” Half morocco, French stylei 
Price, $1.50. 


ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, Boston. 



Messrs . Roberts Brothers' Publications. 


BALZAC IN ENGLISH, 


Lost Illusions : Tie Two Poets, and Eve and David. 

By HONORE DE BALZAC. 

Being the twenty-third volume of Miss Wormeley’s translatiori of 
Balzac’s novels. i2mo. Half Russia. Price, #1.50. 

For her latest translation of the Balzac fiction cycle, Miss Wormeley gives us 
the first and third parts of “Illusion Perdue,” under the caption of “Lost 
Illusions,” namely, “The Two Poets” and “Eve and David.” This arrange- 
ment is no doubt a good one, for the readers are thus enabled to follow the consecu- 
tive fortunes of the Angouleme folk, while the adventures of Eve’s poet-brother, 
Lucien, which occur in Paris and make a tale by themselves, are thus left for a 
separate publication. The novel, as we have it, then, belongs to the category of 
those scenes from provincial life which Balzac found so stimulating to his genius. 
This story, certainly, in some respects takes high rank among them. The 
character-drawing is fine: Lucien, the ambitious, handsome, weak-willed, selfish, 
and easily-sinning young bourgeois, is contrasted with David, — a touching picture 
of the struggling inventor, born of the people and sublimely one-purposed and 
pure in his life. Eve, the type of a faithful large-brained and larger-hearted wife, 
who supports her husband through all his hardships with unfaltering courage and 
kindness, is another noble creation. David inherits a poorish printing business 
from his skin-flint of a father, neglects it while devoting all his time and energy to 
his discovery of an improved method of making paper ; and through the eviL 
machinations of the rival printing firm of the Cointets, as well as the debts foisted 
on him by Lucien in Paris, he is brought into money difficulties and even into 
prison. But his invention, although sold at a sacrifice to the cunning Cointets, 
gets him out of the hole at last, and he and his good wife retire on a comfortable 
competency, which is augmented at the death of his father into a good-sized 
fortune. The seamy side of law in the provinces is shown up in Balzac’s keen, 
inimitable way in the description of the winding of the coils around the unsuspect- 
ing David and the depiction of such men as the brothers Cointets and the shrewd 
little petifogging rascal, Petit Claud. The pictures of Angouleme aristocratic 
circles, too, with Lucien as high priest, are vivacious, and show the novelist’s 
wonderful observation in all ranks of life. The bit of wild romance by which 
Lucien becomes the secretary of a Spanish grandee lends a fairy-tale flavor to tne 
main episodes. Balzac, in whom is united the most lynx-eyed realism and the 
most extravagant romanticism, is ever and always one of the great masters in 
fiction of our century. 


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BALZAC IN ENGLISH. 


A Great Man of the Provinces in Paris. 

By HONORE DE BALZAC. 

Being the second part of “ Lost Illusions.” Translated by Kath- 
arine Prescott Wormeley. i2mo. Half Russia. Price, $1.50. 

We are beginning to look forward to the new translations of Balzac by Katha- 
rine Wormeley almost as eagerly as to the new works of the best contemporary 
writers. But, unlike the writings of most novelists, Balzac’s novels cannot be 
judged separately. They belong together, and it is impossible to understand the 
breadth and depth of the great writer’s insight into human life by reading any 
one volume of this remarkable series. For instance, we rise from the reading of 
this last volume feeling as if there was nothing high or noble or pure in life. But 
' what would be more untrue than to fancy that Balzac was unable to appreciate 
the true and the good and the beautiful ! Compare “ The Lily of the Valley ” 
or “Seraphita” or “Louis Lambert” with “The Duchesse of Langeais” and 
“ Cousin Bette,” and then perhaps the reader will be able to criticise Balzac with 
some sort of justice. — Boston Transcript. 

Balzac paints the terrible verities of life with an inexorable hand. The siren 
charms, the music and lights, the feast and the dance, are presented in voluptu- 
ous colors — but read to the end of the book! There are depicted with equal 
truthfulness the deplorable consequences of weakness and crime. Some have 
read Balzac’s “ Cousin Bette ” and have pronounced him immoral ; but when 
the last chapter of any of his novels is read, the purpose of the whole is clear, and 
immorality cannot be alleged. Balzac presents life. His novels are as truthful 
as they are terrible. — Springfield U nion. 

Admirers of Balzac will doubtless enjoy the mingled sarcasm and keen analy- 
sis of human nature displayed in the present volume, brought out with even more 
than the usual amount of the skill and energy characteristic of the author. — 
Pittsburgh Post. 

The art of Balzac, the wonderful power of his contrast, the depth of his 
knowledge of life and men and things, this tremendous story illustrates. How 
admirably the rise of the poet is traced ; the crescendo is perfect in gradation, yet 
as inexorable as fate! As for the fall, the effect is more depressing than a 
personal catastrophe. This is a book to read over and over, an epic of life in 
prose, more tremendous than the blank verse of “ Paradise Lost ” or the 
“Divine Comedy.” Miss Wormeley and the publishers deserve not congratula- 
tions alone, but thanks for adding this book and its predecessor, “ Lost Illusions,” 
to the literature of English. — San Francisco IV ave. 


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BALZAC IN ENGLISH. 


THE BROTHERHOOD OF CONSOLATION. 

(L’ENVERS DE L’HISTOIRE CONJEMPORAINE.) 

By HONORE DE BALZAC. 

t. Madame de la Chanterie. 2. The Initiate. Translated by 
Katharine Prescott Wormeley. i2mo. Half Russia. Price, 

$1.50. 

There is no book of Balzac which is informed by a loftier spirit than 
“L’Envers de l’Histoire Contemporaine,” which has just been added by Miss 
Wormeley to her admirable series of translations under the title, “The Brother- 
hood of Consolation.” The title which is given to the translation is, to our 
thinking, a happier one than that which the work bears in the original, since, after 
all, the political and historical portions of the book are only the background of the 
other and more absorbing theme, — the development of the brotherhood over 
which Madame de la Chanterie presided. It is true that there is about it all 
something theatrical, something which shows the French taste for making godli- 
ness itself histrionically effective, that quality of mind which would lead a Parisian 
to criticise the coming of the judgment angels if their entrance were not happily 
arranged and properly executed ; but in spite of this there is an elevation such as 
it is rare to meet with in literature, and especially in the literature of Balzac’s age 
and land. The story is admirably told, and the figure of the Baron Bourlac is 
really noble in its martyrdom of self-denial and heroic patience. The picture of 
the Jewish doctor is a most characteristic piece of work, and shows Balzac’s 
intimate touch in every line. Balzac was always attracted by the mystical side 
of the physical nature ; and it might almost be said that everything that savored 
of mystery, even though it ran obviously into quackery, had a strong attraction 
for him. He pictures Halpersohn with a few strokes, but his picture of him has 
a striking vitality and reality. The volume is a valuable and attractive addition to 
the series to which it belongs ; and the series comes as near to fulfilling the ideal 
of what translations should be as is often granted to earthly things . — Boston 
Courier. 

The book, which is one of rare charm, is one of the most refined, while at th 
same time tragic, of all his works. — Public Opinion. 

His present work is a fiction beautiful in its conception, just one of tho > 
practical ideals which Balzac nourished and believed in. There never was grea/ 
homage than he pays to the book of books, “The Imitation of Jesus Christ. 
Miss Wormeley has here accomplished her work just as cleverly as in her other 
volumes of Balzac. — N. Y. Times. 


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